Beyond Stars and Conspiracies | A Cosmic Chat with Brian Keating

27:21Yeah. So I read another article recently. I'm giving you all the conspiracy theories and physics that I've read lately. I read that there was probably matter that exists, some kind of matter that existed before the Big Bang. I didn't read the article. actually i just saw the headline i haven't seen it but it sounds completely bogus what um does it say anything about the matter do you recall anything about it i mean energy before the big bang doesn't even make sense to me um you could have a you could have a whole universe by the way uh but in the context of the big bang it's not exactly clear you know what that means if they're talking about like a cyclic universe where the universe bounces and oscillates like we did talk about a couple of years ago.

28:02Yes, it's possible there was matter and energy in the preceding universe, but in the context of a singular Big Bang that happened once, that doesn't make sense. But we know that the Big Bang, the Big Bang probably didn't just happen once. It probably there was like, there's like infinite Big Bangs. Isn't that like the current theory? Again, probably, you know, saying it's probable, there are a lot of scientists, very eminent scientists that don't believe in that, that don't think the universe is an infinite part of what's called the multiverse, where it's coming into and out of existence at different locations in what's called the multiverse.

28:35We have baby universes nucleating. That is a consequence of the theory of inflation. But isn't there like the universe, the Big Bang happened, it goes all the way out, then it starts collapsing on itself? That's one model called the cyclic or bouncing model, yeah. But that is not really what is meant with the multiverse. That is a form of multiverse, but it's not the multiverse that people normally talk about where you have an infinite number of universes parallel to ours in space and in time where big bangs are going on, big crunches are happening, they have different speeds of light, different laws of nature perhaps.

29:11That's the multiverse that is, you know, the preponderance of cosmologists working today believe, and I'm reserving judgment, but that is one of the goals of BICEP and Simon's Observatory to provide physical evidence for the precursor to the multiverse which is called inflation. So, but even if you take the cyclic one where the Big Bang expands, then the Big Crunch happens, then it goes back into a tiny dot and then there's a Big Bang again, even in that one, might there be leftover matter from a prior Big Bang? Yes. That didn't make it all the way back in the Big Crunch? Yes, but it would be so disorganized as to be basically indistinguishable from matter created at the origin of our current observable universe.

29:57That said, there is one exotic form of matter which is proposed to penetrate through such a nucleation event from a previous universe to a current universe, and that's matter in the form of a black hole or in a curvature energy in the form of a black hole. So some people like Roger Penrose has been a guest on my show many times. He won the Nobel Prize three years ago. And his theory is that there are black holes that do penetrate through the expansion that leads to the nucleation of a new universe. It's a very complicated theory and very few cosmologists take it seriously. All right. And then final conspiracy theory that I saw an article about is that dark matter doesn't actually exist.

30:45So that I would say is less of a conspiracy theory and an actual matter of honest to goodness scientific research. There's two ways we can account for the most prominent evidence that there is so-called dark matter in galaxies at distances from the Milky Way galaxy. And the evidence for some strange phenomena occurring in these galaxies is overwhelming. The evidence that the matter that we're made up of, the protons, the neutrons, the croutons, that that is the dominant form of energy is completely excluded in the form of matter. And we're also not the dominant form of energy. There's something called dark energy.

31:29But let's stick to one conspiracy at a time. dark matter is a proposal to explain the bizarre behavior of the rotation of galaxies and the behavior of giant clusters of galaxies and the behavior of the cosmic background radiation that I study that relies on a particle of mass that has mass that is made of matter but that type of matter does not interact with electricity and magnetism that is to say it doesn't interact with light, it doesn't absorb light, and it doesn't emit light. That has been called dark matter or dunca material since this guy Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s kind of conjectured it.

32:10Now, there's another theory that suggests that the universe is made up of ordinary matter only, like protons and neutrons and electrons, but the universe has a different form of the gravitational force field that just appears as if there's missing matter, but this is only manifest on scales of a galaxy itself. And that's called modified Newtonian gravity or Mond dynamics. And Mond suggests that the laws of Einstein, or laws of Newton, not Einstein, just the laws of Isaac Newton have to be modified when you get to the scale of a galaxy, that there are hidden forces that make the rotation properties of galaxies changed in a very accurately calculable fashion.

32:58So these two things stand in opposition, a new form of unseen matter and a new modification of the laws of gravity. Now, we've seen this exact same story in the history of physics, and it has to do with the discovery of the planet Neptune. So the planet Neptune was discovered observationally by noting the weird behavior of the planet uranus or as you call it uranus can't get around everybody laughs everybody in the world laughs at that one all the time i put up a poll on twitter a couple months ago i said uh do you support my proposal to rename uranus it's been incredibly embarrassing to astronomers nobody's calling it uh uranus you know nobody's and that is that better urine us is that better than urane no not really let's be honest then i said who's with me let's change the name to your rectum and it got a lot of attention i mean those boys at nasa were anyway so uh these astronomers laverier and others looked at uranus's uranus's behavior and they saw that it was wiggling around in a way it shouldn't indicative of an unseen chunk of dark matter i.e the planet Neptune, which was heretofore invisible, that was orbiting beyond it and influencing its orbit, causing it to behave this way.

34:22That was an explanation. And then, and that was true, that they predicted where Neptune would be observed, telescopes turned towards it, 1700s discovered the sixth planet, right? So, a seventh planet. So this is amazing. And in fact, it was so convincing that in the 1900s, when accurate measurements of the planet Mercury's orbit began to get measured in the early 1900s, people assumed that there must be a strange hidden planet called Vulcan, invisible to us because it was closer to the sun than Mercury, and it was tugging on Mercury's orbit in a strange way that had been known about for quite some time before that.

35:05And so there was a proposal that solved this problem via another chunk of dark matter, invisible matter, in this case, the planet Vulcan. Now, Einstein came along and said, no, no, no, no, no. We don't have to conjecture some strange chunk of dark matter this time. We have to instead postulate that the laws of gravity and orbits of planets like Mercury get afflicted and affected much more egregiously the closer they are to the sun and that you cannot blindly apply Newton's laws. So he fixed that and, of course, was right and solved this problem using what's called the theory of general relativity.

35:44So in one case, dark matter was a solution. In the other case, changing gravity was a solution. We're exactly in that state right now when it comes to unseen potential matter called dark matter or strange modifications to gravity called MOND at large scales. Now, and again, couldn't it be just like how there was a planet Neptune, some other large piece of matter, a planet that we couldn't observe? Couldn't that be the exact case here? So we're seeing unusual things happening with galaxies. But again, there are galaxies out there that could be larger than anything we've ever observed, but they're too far away for their light to have gotten to us.

36:28so there's no way we can observe them right now. And that could be affecting the galaxies we are trying to measure. Exactly. Along the lines of this exact proposal was conjectured 20 or 30 years ago in what became known as Machos. So Macho is an object that's massive, it's compact, and it only exists in the halo of galaxies where this dark matter phenomenon appears to be manifest. and when we had an observation of dark matter and other galaxies, it was thought, let's go look in the Milky Way galaxy and its halo, the outskirts of this giant, enormous collection of 100 billion suns. Let's look for objects themselves that are like chunks of matter, planets, even black holes, which fit the bill of dark matter.

37:20They absorb light. They don't emit light. Let's look for these objects. And to do that, what astronomers did, is use the space telescope and other telescopes to look at another galaxy really far away called the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is a satellite of the Milky Way galaxy, which has about a billion stars in it, and then look for periodic, or non-periodic, just look for brightening and dimming of light from stars that happen to be co-aligned, such that when this macho goes between the line of sight from that star in a distant galaxy on its way to the Earth, The light gets brighter and it gets dimmer, and it does so non-periodically.

38:01A planet would do it periodically, and we could see that. But this would happen once, one, and done. This is just passing through town. A black hole is moving in front of a distant star. And guess what? They discovered the Altucher objects. They discovered hundreds of them, imputing that there's probably millions or maybe billions of these things in our galaxy alone. but that amount of matter is pitifully, woefully inadequate to explain the amount of deficit between the ordinary matter that we're made up of and this missing matter that we call dark matter. So they do exist. We don't know exactly what they are.

38:39They could be planets the size of Jupiter. They could be black holes. We're learning more about them. But to date, we don't know exactly what they are, only that they're insufficient and they're incapable of explaining dark matter holistically.

39:08so dark matter might be some invisible particles as as theorized or it could be just some large large chunks of matter like black holes or other galaxies that we have to date been unable to observe. You're saying the ones we have observed show a pattern that's too small for us to say that explains the dark matter situation, but it could be the case that with distance, enough things could be not observed that maybe it's the reason for this dark matter theory. Well, yeah. I mean, they're, they're right now. The main hope of the people that believe the dark banner is a particle is that it's not a macho, that it's a wimp, a weekly interacting, massive particle.

39:56So these guys are trolling and gaslighting each other. These astronomers don't have a good time. So when the, uh, if they run into each other at conferences, are there, is anybody ever angry at each other because they believe in machos versus wimps? Like you get like those kinds of politics. Yeah, I've had people that, you know, hate to talk about the other alternative models and people think there's a conspiracy to suppress and reject publications and say, oh yeah, there's all sorts of human behavior that's ugly as can be on display. So certainly I see that between like string theorists and, you know, like you're an experimental physicist.

40:32So you kind of, it's not that you hate anybody, but like you don't really subscribe to the string theorists and they don't subscribe. They don't play in your sandbox. That's different than I am a loop quantum gravity believer and not a string theorist. Yeah. So they will fight with each other. I say, you know, the biggest misconception of my field is that my job is to prove theorists right, prove them, you know, that they're, that they got it right or something. My job is the opposite is to prove them wrong. I, you know, I set out to try to prove everybody wrong. And then hopefully what's left is a little bit closer to the actual truth than we would have realized otherwise.

41:10So in reality, these battles or whatever, I just spoke with Peter Boghossian on his podcast, and we were talking about all these different scientific organizations from the World Health Organization to the CDC to Scientific American to Nature that they've lost so much credibility. And he's like, well, what's the general public person supposed to do? Like, how do you know if you're not a, who do you trust? And my whole thing is, you know, you should avoid trust and belief in people when they do make it tribal and ideological. And you should think like, well, what's this person's moral bank account?

41:46Like, yes, everyone's been wrong. I was wrong. You know, we claimed as part of a team that claimed we discovered evidence for the multiverse, basically, and inflation. We had to retract that. And that was painful and embarrassing and so forth. You know, we didn't make a blunder, but we were over, overreaching in terms of what we could interpret the data to say. So we had to retract that. My conjecture is that when somebody comes up with an idea like, oh, the universe is 26 billion years old and their PR office at every university has goes to the newspapers and then Joe Rogan, that that is not without its perils.

42:23And in fact, what scientists should do, I'm talking about scientists, not just like media, They should have a budget, and that budget should have two kind of segregated accounts. And one account should be for publicizing the information that was acquired, after all, at great expense, time, and treasure supplied by U.S. taxpayers, in my case. And that should be maybe 66 % of the budget. And then 33 % of the budget should be reserved for the retraction of that. Not to say that it's half as likely that I'll be retracted, but the cost to contain and retract information is so much more difficult to do.

43:05To get Rogan to then issue a retweet that I was wrong and Brian Keating set me straight, I don't think that's going to happen. I'm not going to ask him to do that. But the point being, when you make an announcement that you discovered the Big Bang, then it appears on A1 above the fold of the New York Times, as it did for BICEP2, as you know. And then the retraction, if it ever comes, comes on page B17 of the Saturday edition. And it's a horrible thing to communicate to the public. I still get scientists sometimes who say, oh, wow, you were part of the team that discovered the Big Bang. I'm like, you're a scientist.

43:45it. Like, forget about lay people. They think that all the time. I'm like, the name of my book is losing the Nobel Prize. Like, spoiler alert here. Nevertheless, it is because the media has a sensationalist attitude. And we as scientists need to counter that because if we don't, the public support and trust in science will be irrevocably diminished. So let me ask you a question. Like, you say you were embarrassed to make this retraction. How embarrassed? Like, were you worried about your career? It said. Were you worried you were going to be fired as a UCSD professor? No, I wasn't worried about that.

44:24For one thing, the kind of retraction wasn't of the kind that we said that we discovered goblins and ghosts. It wasn't like we said that we made faster than light travel neutrinos. It wasn't that we discovered life on a planet and we had a retraction. we didn't make a blunder. We made a very highly accurate measurement that's actually far superior to any measurement that my subsequent competitor teams have been able to even approach. However, the interpretation, if we had just published it, as we've discovered this pattern of light and said maybe in a footnote, it's consistent with inflation, but it could be other things, there'd be nothing to retract.

45:05In other words, it was merely the overreach that we did was merely, not merely, It was to say that we discovered the imprimatur of the Big Bang and the inflationary universe, which comes concomitantly with the multiverse, et cetera. So there was nothing really – it wasn't a blunder. I didn't leave my thumb on the lens, on the front of the lens when I took a picture like I do with my kids. It was far less kind of amateurish and what have you. As I say, the proof is that we're still the best constraints on this phenomena that have ever been made. So what's interesting to me is that, okay, perhaps, you know, let's leave out the Nobel prize.

45:43Let's say you never had to do the retraction and life would have been great for you in academia and as a professor, and you would be well-known as the physicist who did this. But I would say the fact that you had this negative experience, like I know you've had ups and downs in your career. You discussed this in your book. We've discussed it on the podcast, but this may be, is the most well-known, this is the is not just a personal up and down. This was one that involved all the physicists in the world because it was a major, you're discussing the Big Bang, the major thing that physicists or cosmologists study.

46:17And this retraction, which then morphed into your book, Losing the Nobel Prize, which really put you on the map in some ways, and not just the physicist's map, but it's a writing a book merges you with pop culture and talking about losing the Nobel Prize, which is, has an element of humor in the title. Uh, and then you're on all the podcasts and we're going to discuss, you're going on Joe Rogan's podcast in a few weeks. It's almost like, are you glad, are you glad you had to make this retraction? And that led to a bunch of events that really now made you put you into not only a physicist career, but a public figure.

46:58Let me answer that. Let me just check my ego for one second. It's a very flattering question. No, seriously, let me check my air conditioner unit is broken. So hold on one second. I'll be right back. Hopefully Jay can edit this out.

47:13Nope, I'm putting it in. Now everyone needs to know Brian's kidding. The AC is broken. No wonder he couldn't find the Big Bang. Yeah, exactly. His air conditioning. Yeah. Everyone needs to know, even though you're a successful physicist, your AC could still broke. No, I think the fact that his AC broke means, of course I'm not going to pay attention when he predicts the Big Bang. Sorry, Jake. Oh, we were just chatting about the weather. All right, so am I glad that we're back. Are we live? Okay. Am I glad that we made this? So I was fired from my first postdoc experience. Postdoc is sort of the first job you get after getting your PhD.

47:57You're trying to become a professor, trying to prove your mettle, trying to show that you're an independent scientist, independent of your PhD advisor. And I got fired from Stanford University, which is arguably one of the best, if not the best, in this field. And I am more glad that I got fired from there than any purportedly negative thing that could have ever happened in my life. Your career also is very, you're very young then. And so you probably hadn't really, I mean, here you were a postdoc at Stanford, which kind of implies everything that happened before then was a success for you. I was, yeah, I wouldn't say I was like the wunderkind, but I would say that I had taken, I was a very hard worker.

48:35I still am a very hard worker. I wanted to, you know, kind of make a name for myself. I'd never been fired from a job. So just at a, you know, human level. But I was glad that I got fired in retrospect. And even at the time, because it did lead to me connecting to my eventual mentor, Andrew Lang, who tragically, as I describe in the book, committed suicide not long after we started the experiment that would then later lead to the events of losing the Nobel Prize. And so I miss him tremendously. He's a father figure to me, in some ways deeper than my own father. He was only in his late 40s. And can I ask, why do you think he did that?

49:14I think he was battling some psychologically either undiagnosed, unmedicated, maybe medicated issues. He had gone through a divorce. He had children from his wife's first marriage or his ex-wife's first marriage. She ended up winning the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Francis Arnold, a few years later. But they were like the ultimate power couple, attractive, young, brilliant scientists, both at Caltech. And I think it was a complicated thing. And I think, you know, after they got separated, divorced, what have you, he tried to, you know, maybe, you know, have relationships with other women and maybe it didn't work out.

49:54But nobody really knows except, you know, I wish that he had just reached out to me as I did to him so many times. The thing that was so surprising is like it wouldn't have been like non-obvious to him that everybody would have like just wanted to help him. I mean, he was universally admired and loved and just super popular professor, brilliant, won everything but the Nobel Prize, had great success financially. I don't know. It's very tough to say. But getting back to my favorite subject, which is me, when I got fired from Stanford, my boss at Stanford had been his postdoc before she started at Stanford.

50:32And she graciously, in my mind, connected me to him. And then he hired me almost on the spot. and I accepted it on the spot when I interviewed with him and moved down to Caltech. And then that later led to Biceb and that led to me getting a job at UC San Diego. And that led to me meeting my wife and having my children. And there's just no way that that would have happened otherwise. Yeah, maybe I would have met a different wife and maybe we would have had different kids. But when you see something that's perfectly organized and like there's so many more ways that you can be made unhappy, James, than made more happy.

51:04We've talked about this. I call it the entropy of happiness. There's no available space where I could double your happiness like on demand. But in fact, there's probably at least, you know, I don't even talk about it, as I say, with fathers and sons and children and daughters. You know that. You have infinite downside risk exposure, right? We've talked about Jim Simons who's lost two sons. And he's one of the richest people in the world. Do you want to trade places with him? Absolutely not. Wouldn't you be a lot happier? No way. So I think it's important to realize that you can always be made more.

51:37So right now I can't be made more happy very easily. I mean, if my wife, if she's listening, I don't know, honey, can we have one more kid? You know, she usually hits me in the very place that I need to produce that child. So I just feel blessed on every realm. And yet I could imagine much worse scenarios. So all I'm saying is, well, it's clear when somebody says, oh, well, you would have married somebody. It's just clear that I wouldn't be as happy. There's just no way to convince me that I'd be as happy. So anyway, I'm very glad. Now, you asked me about BICEP. Am I glad that we didn't discover it?

52:12No. I mean, I knew the night before the announcement was made in front of TV cameras, newspapers, CNN, you know, all these other scientists without me being present there, the man who had, you know, arguably created the experimental, you know, predecessor that led to BICEP2. I knew the night before that press conference at Harvard centered for astrophysics that I would not win the Nobel Prize. And that's when the name of the book came into my mind, losing the Nobel Prize. Because I knew that if we were right and we did detect the Big Bang's origin story, that I would be excluded from credit because I wasn't at the press conference.

52:49Harvard had kind of edged me out. And if anything, you know, should have worried about it, I think it would have been Harvard, you know, the repercussions of this retraction. And a lot of my friends and alumni of Harvard have said, stop donating to Harvard. And, you know, the professor who was the lead PI of the project, Professor John Kovac, he's still a professor there and, you know, reasonably friendly with him. But a lot of people thought, like, this is outrageous. He got tenure after this event. You know, he shouldn't. I don't feel one way or another. I'm glad that he's happy and he has, you know, a good life.

53:22But, you know, UCSD had no reason to really pursue me in that sense. Okay. I guess my point is not that you would be happier. My point is really that you took a real big highlight negative event of your career. In this case, you know, making a statement that was a very important statement in the cosmology world. and then having to publicly be, you know, have it dismissed as incorrect. But you took that and you converted it. It's like an alchemy. You converted it into gold. You converted it into something much more positive. And this is really the inspiration in your story, not the physics itself, but how you took a life event that was really, I mean, there's lots of types of bad life events, like a divorce or like going broke or experiencing some other kind of loss.

54:23And the key is, you know, I don't think all the time there's an alchemy that can transform it into good. Like often if you get diagnosed with a terminal disease, I think it's much more difficult to convert that into something good, although it's not impossible. But I think a lot of times people underestimate the power of this kind of personal alchemy that one can do. And you were able to successfully do it. And not everyone can do that. Imagine if you're on, or imagine a lot of professors, it's the end of their lives practically when they don't get tenure, right? Do you know, like, I mean, not to talk about suicide again, but professors kill themselves sometimes when they don't get tenure because that's their whole life as academia.

55:06And, but there's, oh, my feeling is in those types of situations that essentially aren't terminal diseases, there's always, there should always be some alchemy that converts it into personal gold. No, I agree. And that's the lemon into lemonade, if not the noble gold. Yeah, I think you're right. But no, I mean, in my heart of hearts, do I wish that we won? I wish that we were right, you know, in the sense that we didn't make a mistake because this is a great discovery. And, you know, it would have saved Jim Simons about$100 million and wouldn't have to, I'm just kidding. We still would build it.

55:39But to advance scientific knowledge, the earlier that's done, James, the better. And if this is true, you know, then I think I even if I didn't win and I admit as such, I shouldn't have won the Nobel Prize, you know, potentially. But but but I wish that that the result had held up. Forget about the Nobel Prize itself, because that brings up a lot of jealousy. And but just that the scientific result, because I want our scientific knowledge to it. This is the most dangerous time, I think, in history where where people know so little about science and technology, but rely on it for everything. and we play around with things like nuclear holocaust and viruses and AI and all sorts of dangers and just the average person knows nothing about it.

56:25So my goal on my YouTube channel and my podcast is to bring together the greatest minds in science and technology. If they're not adept at public speaking, that's fine. They're engaging with the public through me, which is their moral obligation. Otherwise, I think that they're mostly dead weight and yeah, they can stick in the laboratory, that's great, but I'll be out there publicizing what they do. And if they're too scared, I often get this, oh, don't expect the scientists to speak eloquently. That requires a lot of training. And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, I came out of the womb knowing about relativistic quantum mechanics.

56:57I didn't have to work at that at all. That was easy for, no, it's bullshit. It's something that they just use as an excuse to either leave it to other people. But guess what, guess what? Other people like the lay people say things like, oh, I'm not a scientist or I'm not a math person. Don't expect me to say that or do that. You know what I mean, James? That in this sense, we outsource. It's like that line from A Few Good Men, when Nicholson tells Cruz, you want me on that wall, even if I'm corrupt, even if I'm crooked, you need me on that wall. Scientists are needed out there so that the lay person doesn't have to learn that much about science because it's hard.

57:35But it's an interesting thing. Ever since the pandemic, there's this whole battle between either you're like pro-science or you're anti-science. And they forgot that it's kind of the gray in the middle that creates science. It's like the people who don't trust the science, but who have a combination of knowledge and common sense and skepticism to explore new areas. But there is room for lay people to have opinions that don't necessarily agree with science. it's a delicate balance because if you believe in a flat earth when obviously the earth is round there's something a little crazy so there's there's some balance in the middle where you need to you need to go back to i'm not going to trust that ufos exist just because some guy is testifying in front of congress and he worked for government like i have to maybe i trust it but maybe i don't and i'm not i wouldn't be wrong in either case like and it's the same thing with science like oh the scientist says this XYZ theory or vaccine or whatever is correct.

58:41It's okay. It should be okay for me to express skepticism. I'm not saying I'm anti-vaccine or whatever. I'm just saying it needs to be okay to express skepticism on these things. And unfortunately, it's not anymore. No, I think you're right. But the flip side is important too. Like we saw this in the 1800s. Eagles, Semmelweis says, you got to wash your hands before going from the morgue to the birthing room so that babies don't die and mothers don't die. He, you know, he, he, they, they, they trashed him, put him in a mental institution. He was skeptical of the science and he was a scientist. I tell it to my kids every time they don't wash their hands before they eat chicken nuggets.

59:20That's probably a better technique than my dad did. He told me at night when I'm asleep, there's going to be rats all over my face if I don't wash my face before going to sleep. Pleasant dreams, honey. So that really scared the hell out of me. Yeah. So, yeah, we're in this weird time where – let me ask you this. I was at a dinner a few weeks ago where it was a bunch of physicists and physics writers. And if I say the names, you would certainly know them. And one person had even won the Pulitzer Prize in writing about physics. Another person was a well-known Columbia professor of physics and had written a bunch of books and so on.

59:54And they were the most anti-science people I've ever met. Like they were trashing genomics, AI, space tourism. The fact that we could send a regular citizen into space, they thought this was like the grossest example of capitalism. then there shouldn't be space it was just these quote-unquote space tourists were like just uh uh billionaires who were like you know virtue signaling and blah blah blah and i i said i said to them i couldn't i can't believe i'm hearing all this from a bunch of scientists like like the tv show star trek was a show about space tourism like it's you know they weren't allowed to interfere with anything and they were just exploring the final frontier.

1:00:37That's it. And why are physicists so anti-science? Why are academics so anti-innovation? Well, I think at some level, there's a deep distrust of the financial kind of compensation that comes with technological, you know, kind of scaling to something technologically useful. And I often say, you know, it's too bad that, that physics produces technology, you know, the basic physics, because then you come to rely on it. It's too bad that scientists prevented, you know, the, the, the killing of millions more people, perhaps through the invention of the atomic bomb. And people, what are you talking about?

1:01:18Why is it too bad? Because now it's like relied upon for everything. And now we've unleashed and released, you know, kind of this, this potential for, for, planetary scale Armageddon in many ways, AI to, and it's not just physicists or only physicists or mainly physicists, but molecular biologists, which is a branch of physics in some ways, to nuclear physics, and then perhaps to physics of much more powerful and capable theories and technology. So yes, there's a deep distrust of monetization. I don't know why that is. I think physicists feel like, oh, you're a loser if you sell out and you should be pure and be poor and, you know, just do it for the pleasure of it.

1:02:01And you'll always hear, you know, it's kind of just an example of survivor bias, right? When you win a Nobel Prize, oh, it's just like, oh, I would have just done it for the thrill of doing the work. Okay, well, I don't see you like, you know, giving back your Nobel Prize or donating it. In fact, I see you selling it and I see you opining in the New York Times about who should be president and what should we do with Iran and, you know, So, you know, I see you leveraging it rather than, you know, so that's fine. But don't denigrate, you know, kind of the production of tech. I mean, technology, as Arthur C.

1:02:33Clark said, you know, is indistinguishable from magic at a certain level. And don't we all want more magic that's real? Right. But you know what? I think maybe we don't because maybe there's a certain nostalgia in that we love the magic. We love looking at the stars when we were kids and respecting the magic of it, the mystery of it. And as the mystery gets uncovered, maybe there's a combination of jealousy and nostalgia, missing the magic, missing the mystery. You read a book not for the conclusion, but for the mystery along the way. Yeah. So let me refer you. You mentioned Walter White a little bit ago, right?

1:03:14We're talking about aged people. Oh, we're talking about great chemists. Okay, yeah. So I want to talk about, remember the other person that they thought Walter White was, was Walt Whitman. And Walt Whitman has the following poem. I'm going to read it to you. It's called, When I Heard the Learned Astronomer by Walt Whitman. When I heard the learned astronomer, when the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts, the diagrams to add, to divide and measure them, when sitting, I heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room. how soon accountable, unaccountable, I became tired and sick till rising and gliding out.

1:03:55I wandered off by myself in the mystical moist night air. And from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars. So he's like declaring that, you know, this astronomer has robbed the majesty, the magic, the mystery, and perhaps the inexplicable and the poltergeist and the machine. And this is decrying that. And I think as Feynman said, you know, knowing the science behind it makes me appreciate it all the more. And I think I've talked about this maybe in the past with you. When I look out at a, when I look out and see phenomena like the reddening of the sun at sunset, or I see these distant stars and I see why they twinkle, I can appreciate them and their beauty as much as you can, James, as a non-astronomer.

1:04:49But I actually appreciate them much more. And it's just like with your, do you love Robin more now or when you met her in the first day you met her? Definitely when I met her. Okay. So she's hopefully, you know, not listening to this podcast. She doesn't listen to your podcast. I know that. So you've grown to love her the more that you've known about her. I mean, love changes, like love matures, right? But I'm saying it intensifies. Do you love your child more now than on the day she was born? I am better friends with her now than on the day she was born. I would say the love is equal. You monster.

1:05:21Okay, how about this, James? Let me prove that you're wrong and that you're not being honest with yourself. Let me tell you, I just took a paternity test, and your beautiful daughter, you know, it just came back that actually— I don't love her anymore. Right? So what does that mean, you love her when she was born? What does it even mean? What has she done? What does she—anyway, you would love her the same, right? because you've had so much together time. And the blood is... So all I'm saying is the more I learn about the universe, the more astounding it is, the more that I have a deep and abiding infatuation with it.

1:05:57Although it's... But that's you. ...started with it. But that's you. But I started like... I wasn't always an astronomer, James. I started off like Walt Whitman and James Altucher. And now I've become like more, you know, Brian Keating. And now I can appreciate that. And why do you limit me? As Walt Whitman said, And he didn't even take his own advice, that little schmuck. He said, I contain multitudes. Do I contradict myself? Well, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with me saying, I actually appreciate it more than you, and you can have what I have, James, and even deepen it more. You know, if someone told me I can love my wife even more, and here's this course, or you know, here's a James Altucher, Robin, you know, kind of a 12-step program, I would take it.

1:06:37Because there are very few ways and avenues designed that provided great guarantees of deepening love and abiding infatuation. But I, I'm like you in that I, in terms of the science, I appreciate the knowledge more than the majesty. Like to me, having the knowledge gives the universe more majesty. But I was surprised like you, like the way you're talking right now is the opposite of how these other physicists I met were talking. Like I was so astonished. You have to tell me off the air who these people are. Cause I would smack them. I'm always honest about myself, but I don't ever want to put other people down.

1:07:16But I was surprised how anti-science as a group these scientists were. It's not surprising to me. They literally were like, CRISPR is going to destroy the world. AI is going to destroy the world. Physics, you know, and they were physicists. Physics is like, oh, just breeding these billionaire space tourists. And they were horrified. Well, I would love to know about them. I mean, I often phrase it in the form of another great statement by Richard Feynman. He used to say like, if you ask a normal person, quote unquote, would you like to live forever? They'll say no, you know, I wouldn't want to see everybody die and all this.

1:07:54But if you ask a scientist, they'll say, yeah, I'd love to see what the physics of the 29th century is going to be. I'd love to see if we are alone in the universe. So the physicists, I always say, are like children. They're curious. They're inquisitive. They're imaginative. They are usually iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian. They are jealous. They're petty. They don't share their toys with others. And they have all the bad qualities of kids. There's no such thing as a single-edged sword. So I think when we look at what scientists should do, I would say that a scientist should be the most excited about the prospects.

1:08:30You know, if we can create something, yes, is it going to be in the hands of Joe Biden instead of – or Vladimir Putin? That is true. Does that mean we shouldn't have invented it? I mean it's just taking absurdity. Should we not have invented the transistor, which is invented by physicists? Is that a net bad? I mean is that net negative because we have online harassment and we have Kardashians? I mean I don't think so. I love the – by the way, I love the Kardashians. I do too. She did a great interview with this guy, Jay Shetty, that I actually sent to my wife, and it made me really appreciate her very much.

1:09:02So, anyway. Oh, I'll have to listen to that. I've been on Jay Shetty's show as well, and I didn't know. He's interviewed Khloe Kardashian a few years ago, and then. He just had Kim on, yeah. I guess he just. Really? Yeah. I'll have to listen to that. It was great. But, you know, so, again, I agree. We invent all these things. Everything with good intentions has some bad consequences. We've seen this over and over again in every field. But innovation sort of happens by itself regardless of the individuals. Because there's enough people being thrown in every problem that someone's going to solve it.

1:09:39Like the theory of relativity. If Einstein hadn't solved it, there were 20 people right behind him all ready to go. Yeah. No, I don't disagree with that. I mean, I think there are things like the Mona Lisa, which just would not exist. It wouldn't be – there might be some great painting or whatever, but it wouldn't exist in the way that we know and love the Mona Lisa. But you're right. The theory of relativity, someone else would have discovered it. And in fact, several people were very close to it, as was – even up until the time of Einstein. So I think you're absolutely right. Right, and we kind of give scientists too much credit when, in fact, there is a creative process in the aspect of science, but there's also a deep luck and serendipitous aspect of science that we shouldn't overlook.

1:10:25Like with everything. Like I'll still give complete credit to the scientists. Like Einstein's the guy. Isaac Newton's the guy. Galileo's the guy. I should be saying, was it Francis Crick's the woman? Francis Crick is the man. Rosalind Franklin. Oh, yeah, Rosalind Franklin. See, I got that totally wrong. I'm like, canceled. Every time we talk, you get canceled. It's true. But actually I took an IQ test and it was about 60. So I just pretend to be smart. You know, people think, people say we only use 10 % of our brains and someday I aspire to do that as well.

1:11:01Yeah. So, so, so it's not to be totally like, uh, and anti the individual, but it's, it's like things move forward no matter what. And we can't stop it. People say we need to regulate AI. Sorry. You cannot stop it. Right. Like it's not going to stop. You can't stop all the things that are, that are happening right now. Yeah. But let me ask you a question now, go into a different topic. You're going on Joe Rogan. What day? Supposedly the 21st of August. All right. So why, how did he let's, let's, let's work on this. Let's make you the best Joe Rogan guest ever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Okay, so first of all, let me take the reins for a second as the more experienced podcaster here, James, not the guy.

1:11:47You know, I have to tell you because a lot of your audience and my audience will be new to our conversations. But I only – so I met you at TEDx San Diego in 2014, and Jay will put a link to our TED Talks there. And yours has exponentially more than my views. But we met then. I had already followed you for many, many years, and I'm really excited to meet you. You were with your previous wife at the time. You were very flustered. You almost left the arena. It was very hard to talk. So when I became a semi-connected podcaster and I went on the Jordan Harbinger show, I asked Jordan for one and only one connection.

1:12:24I didn't ask him to be connected to Kobe Bryant. I didn't ask him to be connected to Neil deGrasse Tyson. I asked him to be connected to you because you had such a huge impact on my life. And it was long before I really was thinking podcasting could be my second mountain as David Brooks calls it, you know, something I can do in my older age and maturity, bringing wisdom, um, not just knowledge to, uh, to the world of minds that I'm attempting to connect. So anyway, um, when I did that, you know, partially it was because you're just a relentless student of the craft of podcasting. And I really see you in the same kind of genre as Joe Rogan.

1:13:00And, um, and, and it's not just because of your physical prowess and your, you know, I mean, you're a comedian, you were a comedian. I mean, there's so many ways that you guys are similar. Uh, and, uh, except for the hair, uh, you see, get aspire to your hair. So I want you to do something that might be hard for you and kind of critique me, uh, and how I am as a guest. Uh, and I know it's not hard. It's hard for you, uh, because you, you, you kind of should feel paternalistically towards although we're almost the same age. But the bottom line is I I've been told some tough love from previous huge podcasts that I've been on.

1:13:33Uh, I can explain the origin story, but that's, you know, I don't think that'll be super interesting. I would love it if you taught me kind of how I, Brian Keating, can be the best guest and what you would do if you were me to take advantage of a possibly once-in-a-lifetime experience, not for monetary gain, but just for my own benefit, Joe's benefit, and his audience's benefit. I'm ready for you, Joe. And let me just say, you're a great guest. You've been on this podcast how many times? Like 10 times. So obviously, if you were a bad guest, and I have occasionally bad guests, you wouldn't have come on again.

1:14:14So I always enjoy having you on. It's always a good experience. So we're just talking in kind of small amounts here and there, nor am I the expert necessarily on what makes a great guest. It's just a great guest for me. and for me a great guest which again i consider you a great guest is where it's more of a conversation with friends and of course there's something i'm curious about so i you came on many times we did a whole series of how theories of how the universe was born something you were an expert in but i was not so i had questions so it was in that way it's not quite a conversation with friends, which is totally bi-directional, but it's more unidirectional.

1:14:55I'm asking questions, you're telling me answers. And so in that sense, nothing here is a criticism, but let's brainstorm how you going on Joe Rogan could be as entertaining and interesting as possible. What's a podcast, but let's say an extreme form of edutainment. The best podcasts, even comedian podcasts and let's say i'm not counting joe rogan joe rogan's a comedian but let's say pure comedian podcasts they're not just like a bunch of guys telling jokes they're like history hyenas which i've been on which was chris dostofino and janice poppers two great comedians they they're the topics were were still history and so even if they would only talk for 10 minutes out of an hour about history and then it was a hilarious podcast they they still had like a backbone of education and entertainment.

1:15:50They were entertainers talking about something educational. And Joe Rogan, I would say, is not quite an interview podcast. He is in that category, but I really think, and there's a couple of factors here, I really think he's best when he's having a conversation with friends. And he pulls that off very well, even if he doesn't know you. So he's the best at that. Like he's very, he has a lot of experience and making people feel very comfortable very quickly and, uh, and making it a conversation with friends, even though he's probably more curious, he has someone on because he's curious. And again, that's what makes it an interview podcast.

1:16:35And the other person then gives their lecture or their, or they slice it up his, in their own way, the answers to his questions. But still, I feel he does a much better job than me at transforming it from an interview into a conversation with friends. And so I'll be curious how he does that with you. Having a lot of experience with you as a guest, I'll be curious how he breaks you down to do his style. And I would say, before getting into anything remotely seeming like criticism, why did he ask you on? Does he want to find out about UFOs and what this recent statements from the whistleblower on UFOs?

1:17:15Or what's the reason? Well, the inciting incident, as they say, was that he had on a gentleman from the Discovery Institute named Stephen C. Meyer, who is a proponent of intelligent design. And they were talking about the James Webb Space Telescope results, the same ones that you and I were talking about earlier. And Stephen Meyer mentioned you should really talk to Brian Keating about this on the show. And it's actually one of the rare, cause he doesn't put his show on YouTube anymore, but it was one of the clips that they, the only clip that he put on YouTube from that interview. So I was pretty flattered by that.

1:17:52And my friend, Eric Weinstein has mentioned me multiple times on the podcast as well on the air to Joe. And that's flattering about, you know, both the UFO topic and the origin of the universe topic. And then last but not least, Jordan Peterson, you know, become friendly with and teaching at his university this fall. He has also, you know, recommended and was gracious to kind of spread the word to Joe and introduced us. And then I was just very flattered that Joe agreed. It was kind of funny. Joe sent me an email. He's like, oh, I'd love to have you on and talk about, you know, all these research and stuff.

1:18:32And then I didn't get his email. It got, like deleted, but his booking agent, it's pretty amazing. He does all his own booking, Joe does, but then he has a booking agent who already was on the case and he took the opportunity and we already set up the podcast. And like three days later, Joe Rogan's like, Brian, I hate to bother you. Um, but will you, you know, come on the podcast? Otherwise, you know, I have to, we'll have to find another guest. I'm like, holy crap. He doesn't know that I already, um, I'm like booked and traveling to Austin on this day. Uh, so it's pretty funny. So I apologize.

1:19:03And so So it's just, he's a very down to earth guy. I mean, that guy, so many, and he's doing his own booking and like making sure I have the right hotel and there's a car waiting for, it's just an amazing, gracious individual. So I'm really like, that's more or less the origin of how it happened. Yeah, that's great. And so again, I would assume this is gonna be a conversation just as much as it'll be an interview. Like obviously he's gonna ask you questions about things he doesn't know about and wants to learn about, like whether it's the James Webb telescope or UFOs, but don't be afraid to talk about anything.

1:19:38Like you can talk about anything. You're just two guys, two smart guys talking about what, the fact that you want to talk about something that makes it worth talking about. I would have that mindset that it could be about anything like parenting or politics or physics or economics. Like you're a smart guy, he's a smart guy. If the conversation goes someplace, it's supposed to go to that place. So again, you don't have to stay in your lane. This is what we were talking about earlier. Just because you're a physicist doesn't mean you have to stay in your lane. You could be in other lanes. You're a very smart person and have lots of interesting things to say.

1:20:15But the other thing is, I'll tell you one story. So when I was in college, I would go out, let's say, to a bar with a friend of mine, and we would try to talk to girls. And we were both two unattractive people trying to talk to girls in a bar. And he was a very good conversationalist. He'd always be able to, wasn't necessarily a good looking guy, but always good at like sparking a conversation, would always get the phone numbers. I would get zero. And finally he told me, James, when you talk and tell a story, take out every other word. That's how I pack. That's how I tell my wife to pack. Take out every other piece of clothes.

1:20:54Yeah, that's impossible though for many people. But I really took that to heart. That became like the best writing advice I've ever received was to tag out every other word. Like I edit everything I write like 100 times just to take out word after word after word. And it's the same thing with conversations. Like you know a lot, Brian, so you know everything about physics. Try not to use big words. Like lacuna. Don't use lacuna. I love it. But I also don't want to be like, oh, you're a meathead, UFC guy, Joe, you know, fear factor. No, no. No, it's not. Because he always denigrates himself. When it says audience.

1:21:29This is about, do you ever heard of the Flesher-Kincaid score, the FK score? So the Flesher-Kincaid score is a way to calculate the grade level of a piece of writing. So you can give me a piece of text. And if you Google FK calculator, there are calculators all over the internet that if I feed in an entire book even, it'll tell me the grade level. Oh, this is at a 12th grade level. This is at a third grade level. This is at a, I put in a grad student's email to me once and it was at an 18th grade level. And I told the guy, don't write like this anymore because nobody can understand anything you write.

1:22:09And so guess what Old Man in the Sea is? What the FK score of the, maybe the best - Oh, it's like fifth grade or fifth grade level, yeah. Yeah, so Ernest Hemingway's, the book that basically clinched the Nobel Prize for him in literature was written at approximately fifth to sixth grade level. And that's like the, actually the optimal for a written book. That doesn't mean the audience is stupid. It just means the audience wants to enjoy a good book. And fifth and sixth grade level is the best way to hit the world audience at. And you're an academic, but you're not insecure about your intelligence.

1:22:45I understand sometimes why some people talk smart is because they're actually insecure about their intelligence, but you aren't insecure about your intelligence, but you are very smart. And sometimes maybe you don't realize people understand things without you having to explain at the neutrino level, you know, what it is that's going on or very complicated things. And so I would just take that viewpoint that like, you're not, it's not about Joe being smart or not. It's just the audience enjoys an FK score of six. Well, and I mean, that's, that's really helpful. I guess the thing is, So here's a common dilemma that I'm worried about occurring.

1:23:23And I've been accused by this very famous podcaster off the air with love and respect, you know, of name dropping. And when I was on his podcast and he's been on Rogan Show and he said, you know, you have to be careful. But here's the deal. So one thing that's definitely going to come up are these UFO hearings, which, you know, I don't think we have enough time today to talk about before I have to run. But the fact is there's a lot of meat there for me to talk about, so much so that I've had on some of the world's experts, including one of these eyewitnesses, Navy F-18 pilots that witnessed these Tic Tacs and other phenomena that were the subject of this congressional hearing that got 10 million views last week in Congress, along with this guy who talked about non-human biologics.

1:24:15I haven't had him on. So now I'm talking to Joe and he says, what do you make of these aliens? Am I to say in fear of name dropping, you know, like, well, I shouldn't say I had on these guys or gals. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's okay to name drop. Here's what it's not okay to do. And gosh, I was on this TV, John Stossel, is that his name? Yeah, yeah. I was once on this show with John Stossel and there was an economist on. And every time he made a statement, he would say something like, you know, as so-and-so said in their paper in 1979, X, Y, Z. And in the commercial break, John Sassel said, don't – you don't need to refer to anybody else.

1:24:57It's your theory, your ideas. Like it doesn't mean – nobody gives a shit who – what paper you're quoting. And they don't care. They don't remember. Just own it. Just take the theory and it's yours. And so when you name drop and say, oh, I had the F-18 guy on, that's important name dropping. That's the guy who saw with his own eyes a UFO. So I want to hear what you have to say about him. That's, I don't, oh yeah, your podcast is popular. You've had big names on. That's great. That's also establishing who you are. It's not like, it's not name dropping. It's not like, well, when I was having dinner with Barack Obama and we talked about UFOs, I said this, that would be more name dropping.

1:25:36And you don't do that. Like, yes, if you are – you don't have to quote somebody who wrote a book in 1923 about UFOs. But if you're referring to – what's the guy's name? Grush, who is the whistleblower, you have to say his name. Or if you're talking to that F-18 guy or Avi Loeb or whatever, you have to say his name. But again, there's a balance, like someone talking to you directly as opposed to something you read. You don't have to – if you're just repeating somebody's theory, you don't have to say who the theory was. it's your theory now. So that's how you could avoid half of that. Yeah. And the other thing I've heard is this might make it really uncomfortable just because I think the job of a scientist is to criticize the ideas.

1:26:19Obviously, I'm not going to criticize the people. But let's say I don't believe, you know, the government or, you know, I don't believe what's pilot or I don't believe Eric Weinstein about peer review or something like that. He's had these people on Joe's show. Joe is reputedly, reportedly gives out his cell phone number to guests and they keep in touch. And he's generally a genuinely wonderful human being, a mensch, as we say in the old country, in the out-of-the-country. I don't feel as comfortable. What if I have to criticize my good friend Eric? I'm not going to criticize his personally. but let's say, you know, something Eric's on about peer review and he thinks it's stupid and we shouldn't have, that's stupid.

1:27:02He thinks we shouldn't have it. It's counterproductive. Jeffrey Epstein's father is involved in the origin story of it, blah, blah, blah, CIA, this thing and that Pergamon press. Now, Joe is defensive. I've heard of his guests because they're his friends. You know, we have a different, you know, I have on people on my podcast, I wouldn't necessarily trust some of them, you know, to have dinner with, let alone like call, I'll give him my cell phone number and hang out with. So how do I navigate those rocky shoals? With storytelling. Now, if he says, like, Brian, I heard you're critical of Eric Weinstein's peer review ideas.

1:27:45I wouldn't say, you know, Eric Weinstein's just an idiot about this. Like, of course you need peer review. How else should people know that there's been social proof or authority on these articles? I wouldn't say that. I would say, look, Eric and I talk about this all the time. Last time we talked about it, I said to him, Eric, how would the regular person, you're a smart guy, Eric. So how would all the people less intelligent than you know to trust your articles if it's not peer reviewed? Like that's, yes, there are problems with peer review because there's politics in every area of life, including science.

1:28:18Yes, there's problems with peer review because people are afraid of being canceled, you know, through association. They reviewed your paper and later on you turn out to be this or that. So, yes, there's problems with it. Let's think. So I told Eric, can we, I asked him, can we fix these problems? And look, it's an ongoing discussion. Be skeptical of the skeptics. And Eric agreed. Yeah. So now. That's a good. That's the story. Yeah. Okay. Hold on one second. My daughter is playing Taylor Swift in here. Hold on one second. Computer, stop. She's playing it somehow. She's convinced Taylor Swift to come out.

1:28:52um okay next maybe the final question before i have to run today uh james is the following when i um hold on a second computer stop i'm gonna unplug this damn thing hold on a second cut this jay cut this out jake he can't even get his computer to work right i was gonna believe bicep before it kills before Taylor Swift kills me. Okay. Um, it was good, good audio quality though. It is good. And I, yeah, I've changed it from the, uh, ALXEA, uh, name to computer and I can do it. I ask it to open the pod bay doors as well. Okay. So the, the final sort of speak question is, uh, one of the hallmarks that I respect and try to emulate about you, and it's made my life really hard is on my podcast, I don't like to ever have an author on when I haven't read his or her book.

1:29:51And you taught me some hacks and tricks. One of which was read the acknowledgements, read the last chapter. When you can't read the whole thing, you can skip certain things. Like when the author starts talking about really boring stuff, like the fusion of the hydrogen and the CMB, like you literally said that on an episode, not related to me, but somebody else. And you were talking, I know you were talking about my book. No, I don't think, I don't think I was referring to your book. I swear to God. I actually called you out and you were happy about it. But then I did something. I said, you know how James, you can demonstrate that you really love and engage with the author's book.

1:30:28Most of all, I said, you point out a typo, a significant logical error or typo in their book. And I told you about an error in choose yourself, which I was very proud about. That is true. That definitely they wake up to that. I think, um, and I might've made a faux pod because I sent Joe copies of my books, but reportedly he doesn't, he's not going to read them. And I'm wondering about going in there. There's the whole, uh, uh, what was his name? Larry King, where he wouldn't read anything like you and Cal talked about that many times, right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, which is a very viable interview strategy, but I don't know if that's like, I don't know that he's, well, I know he's, he's gonna do some research, but like, otherwise he doesn't know me i mean i've i've been told well you've gotten an invitation so don't even worry you don't have to prove yourself anymore but like how much should i and then if i don't if i assume that he didn't read anything which is fine and i told him like i'm not giving you homework assignments i'm just yeah i'm not that much of a professor but um how can i not seem slimy salesman-y when i say as i describe in my book you know or like don't say don't say as I describe in my book.

1:31:37Just tell the story. Same with the podcast. As I had on my podcast, you know. Right, no, you just say I've spoken to. Now you could, you could. Because I do want people to know about my podcast and my books, obviously. Don't worry about that. If you're a good guest, they're going to look you up. So, you know, he'll, if let's say you told the story about losing the Nobel Prize, he's going to say you wrote a book on that. He will say that. Trust me, he will say that. You don't need to advertise it. And look, again, what you want, your goal, let's now talk technically in the weeds. Your goal is you want clips to appear on YouTube that are interesting.

1:32:14And a clip, let's say, is three minutes, three to five minutes, maybe longer, maybe shorter. So what things that you feel right now are unique and you have strong opinions on that are clippable, that are like three-minute stories? So your opinion on UFOs. I don't believe life exists in the universe, you know, beyond a very small probability, let alone technological life. That's pretty controversial. He does. So that's a clip. And if he disagrees, that's great. But think of simple ways to say, let's do this thought experiment, Joe. Imagine if there is, like blah, blah, blah. So three minute clip on a strong opinion that's in the news where you're taking a different stance.

1:32:57Because right now people are leaning towards, oh, a government whistleblower with zero evidence says there's UFOs. So people are leaning towards that the UFOs have happened. So you're going to be contrary to that, not because you're trying to be popular, but because you legitimately are contrary and make it clippable. Very simple and easy to explain in three minutes why they don't exist. And think of like a thought experiment you and Joe can participate in a conversation on. What's another opinion that's clippable? That I believe the universe may not have had a single Big Bang and may be much, much different.

1:33:33That there may be consilience between, I won't use that word, But between a biblical narrative, I believe that— That, by the way, is clippable, that the Bible and scientists could both be correct at the same time. Now, this is a common theme among biblical scientists. This has been discussed for 50 years. But it's not well known among, let's say, the average listener that the Bible and extreme physics could be connected in any way. And that is clear. What's a political thing you could say that has nothing to do with physics? Well, culturally, I think educational system, you know, is destined for the ash bin of history that we need to complete.

1:34:24Not just, you know, reformation. We basically need to tear it down. That's one controversial opinion. So to make it a little more extreme, kids are going to grow up – if not your kids, your grandkids are going to grow up stupid if they continue with the current educational system. Yeah. Like take it two levels more extreme. Okay. Something like that. I believe the Nobel Prize is detrimental to science and society. That's something that he probably won't – he's talked about Nobel Prize. He's had on Nobel Prize winners. Okay. So but now – okay. He's defensive though of his guess. I won't mention my guest, but right.

1:35:02So just be, you know, but you know, the other thing is despite all this, don't worry too much is another important thing. Like don't, again, it's just a conversation. So don't catch yourself thinking in the middle of this. Oh, I have to get this interesting, but I don't want to be defensive. Do zero marketing of podcast or book. They will come up in the conversation. Don't worry about that. Your only focus is clips. Okay. And conversation. Yeah. Meta is conversation. Tactical is clips. All right, James. Well, this has been wonderful and incredibly helpful and preparatory. Hopefully I won't be nervous, but it'll be interesting to see after I...

1:35:42That's the real key is don't worry about any of these things. And you could ignore everything I said. Just be yourself. And it's going to be great. You're going to be great. I hate myself. What are you talking about? I'm going to listen to that podcast. And I listen to very few podcasts. I really appreciate it, James. That means so much to me. coming from my podcast mentor and friend. And hopefully we'll get together and do an in-person podcast ourself one of these days. Eventually, yeah. All right, well, thanks a lot, Brian. Thanks, James. Thanks, Jay. And enjoy. Thank you.