#137 – Alex Filippenko: Supernovae, Dark Energy, Aliens & the Expanding Universe
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2020
⏱️ 160 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alex Filippenko is an astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at Berkeley. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Alex’s Website: https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/alex-filippenko/
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:36) – Universe expansion
(08:00) – Dark energy
(15:28) – Scientific revolutions
(27:18) – Asteroid hitting Earth
(30:50) – Giant solar flares and the power grid
(37:50) – Elon Musk and space exploration
(42:41) – Exoplanets
(50:03) – Traveling close to the speed of light
(52:13) – Traveling faster than the speed of light
(1:00:39) – Intelligent life in the universe
(1:04:14) – Fermi Paradox
(1:13:52) – Finding alien life would be bad news
(1:18:49) – UFO sightings
(1:31:58) – Universe expansion speed
(1:36:42) – The universe is infinite
(1:40:58) – What happened before the Big Bang?
(1:45:14) – Roger Penrose
(1:48:48) – Nobel Prize for the accelerating universe
(2:10:23) – Supernova
(2:21:47) – The greatest story ever told
(2:25:44) – Richard Feynman
(2:32:37) – Meaning of life
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Alex Filipenko, an astrophysicist and professor of astronomy from Berkeley. |
| 0:06.8 | He was a member of both the Supernova Cosmology Project and the Hizzy Supernova Search Team, |
| 0:12.6 | which used observations of the extra galactic supernova to discover that the universe is accelerating, |
| 0:19.9 | and that this implies the existence of dark energy. |
| 0:23.5 | This discovery resulted in the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics. |
| 0:28.6 | Outside of his groundbreaking research, he is a great science communicator and is one of the |
| 0:34.2 | most widely admired educators in the world. I really enjoyed this conversation and I'm sure |
| 0:39.9 | Alex will be back again in the future. Quick mention of each sponsor followed by some thoughts related |
| 0:45.9 | to the episode. Nuro, the maker of functional sugar-free gum and mince that I used to give my brain |
| 0:53.0 | a quick caffeine boost. Better help, an online therapy with a licensed professional, |
| 0:59.2 | masterclass, online courses that I enjoy from some of the most amazing humans in history, |
| 1:05.6 | and cash app, the app I used to send money to friends. Please check out these sponsors in |
| 1:10.5 | the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that, |
| 1:16.6 | as we talk about in this conversation, the objects that populate the universe are both |
| 1:22.0 | awe-inspiring and terrifying in their capacity to create and to destroy us. |
| 1:28.7 | Solar flares and asteroids lurking in the darkness of space, |
| 1:33.2 | threaten our humble fragile existence here on Earth. In the chaos, tension, conflict, |
| 1:39.6 | and social division of 2020, it's easy to forget just how lucky humans are to be here, |
| 1:46.7 | and with a bit of hard work, maybe one day we'll venture out towards the stars. |
| 1:53.2 | If you enjoyed this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with fast stars and op-a-podcast, |
| 1:57.4 | follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. |
| 2:03.5 | As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these |
... |
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