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Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Adam Riess: A Nobel Mind on a Cosmic Quest (#058)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Physics, Natural Sciences, Science

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2020

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Adam Riess is my guest on this episode of INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE. Adam was an essential character in my book, Losing the Nobel Prize. Though at the top of his field, Riess is relentlessly passionate about perfecting his craft and he credits curiosity as the force that sustains his career. Riess and I discussed cosmological controversies including inflation, the Hubble tension, and primordial magnetic fields. We also discuss legacies, prize money, Albert Einstein’s ability to transfix physicists and laypeople.  07:02 Curiosity is the key to a fulfilling career in science. 18:22 9% and why it matters. 26:00 Einstein was a victim of bad data. 33:02 Resolving Hubble tension. 40:56 The pursuit of extraordinary evidence. 52:03 What ethical will does Adam plan to leave behind? 53:28 What would Adam put on a billion year old time capsule? 55:44 What wisdom would Adam share with his younger self? 57:53 How did Adam spend his Nobel Prize winnings? Adam Riess was a recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, and the Thomas J. Barber Professor in Space Studies at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He is also an Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He received his PhD in Astrophysics from Harvard University with Bob Kirshner. Adam Riess talks about his latest paper on the podcast “Cosmology Talks” here: https://youtu.be/2LN6dJi0og Find Adam Riess on the web: https://www.stsci.edu/~ariess/ Into The Impossible is a Production of the Arthur C. Clarke Center For Human Imagination. http://imagination.ucsd.edu @imagineUCSD Our four areas of exploration are: The neuroscience of imagination Science fiction and speculative culture Space and the cosmos Art and science as tools of the imagination ️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

0:07.0

Welcome everybody to the Into the Impossible Podcast, a production of the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego.

0:18.0

I am your very fearful host Brian Keating, co-director of the Arthur C. Clark Center.

0:24.4

And today it's a great privilege and joy to welcome a friend from a completely different

0:30.5

discipline in cosmology,

0:33.0

and that's none other than Dr Martin.

0:35.9

Dr Martin.

0:36.8

I just had a PhD student graduate,

0:38.5

his name is Martin, so my 16th student

0:41.4

got slipped in there there confused with you.

0:44.0

Dr. Adam, sorry for that slip up.

0:46.3

How are you doing today?

0:47.9

I'm good.

0:48.9

How are you?

0:49.3

I'm doing good.

0:50.5

You know, we first met.

0:51.7

I was trying to think back when we when we met and I realized it was a while ago and and that was probably during this

0:59.3

Templeton Foundation sponsored young scientist competition blah about to find the best

1:05.8

scientist under age 40 which you know I have to say I did win and what I'm curious

1:11.2

about I think all my listeners are are curious curious about are you ever going to get over that Adam are you ever going to be able to

1:16.7

I'll tell you I've had in kind of an inferiority complex since then especially around you. Yeah, no, it was what I remember, right?

1:25.8

It was Charlie Towns's 90th birthday.

...

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