David Kaiser: MIT Physicist on Black Holes Older Than the Universe

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Physics, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2025

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

MIT physicist and historian David Kaiser examines primordial black holes, exploring how they might explain dark matter and connect to cosmic inflation. He discusses their potential impact on our understanding of the early universe, linking quantum theory, cosmology, and the history of physics.- 00:00 - What Are Primordial Black Holes?- 01:41 - Could They Be Dark Matter?- 05:21 - Kaiser’s Academic Journey- 10:56 - Studying Physics and Its History- 11:57 - Cosmic Inflation Basics- 15:31 - Direct Collapse vs. Stellar Collapse- 25:14 - Bell’s Theorem Explained- 38:32 - Quasars and the Cosmic Bell Test- 43:04 - High-Precision Astronomy- 47:38 - Learning Curves & Interdisciplinary Research- 48:17 - Scalar Fields and Inflation Models- 55:05 - Black Hole Formation from Inflation- 58:41 - Black Hole Mass as a Cosmic Clock- 1:02:50 - Quark-Gluon Plasma & Color Charge- 1:08:46 - Critical Collapse and Mass Spread- 1:11:34 - Charged Primordial Black Holes- 1:13:54 - Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Implications- 1:20:14 - Detecting Black Holes Locally- 1:23:51 - Tracking Planetary Wobbles- 1:26:04 - Hawking Radiation & Positron Signatures- 1:30:06 - Why Track Mars, Not Earth?SPONSORS:- I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE- Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com- Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/SpotifyTOE- YouTube Membership (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/joinRESOURCES:- David Kaiser's published papers: https://arxiv.org/a/kaiser_d_1.html- Bell, J. S. "On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox" (1964): https://cds.cern.ch/record/111654/files/vol1p195-200_001.pdf- "Ultra-High-Energy Neutrinos from Primordial Black Holes" (2025): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.19227- "Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars" (2018): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1808.05966- "Close Encounters of the Primordial Kind" (2023): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.17217- "Primordial Black Holes from Multifield Inflation with Non-minimal Couplings" (2022): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.04471- "Testing Bell's Inequality with Cosmic Photons" (2013): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.3288- "Planck Constraints & Gravitational-Wave Forecasts for PBH Dark Matter Seeded by Multifield Inflation" (2023): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.02168- "Light Scalar Fields Foster Production of Primordial Black Holes" (2025): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.13251- "Debye Screening of Non-Abelian Plasmas in Curved Spacetimes" (2023): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.15385- "Primordial Black Holes with QCD Color Charge" (2023): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.16877- A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553380168- In Search of Schrödinger's Cat - John Gribbin: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553342533- How the Hippies Saved Physics - David Kaiser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/039334231X- Drawing Theories Apart - David Kaiser: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Y5W2X2 Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today we have something different for the audience of theories of everything, and I'm super excited to speak about it.
0:06.0	I'm going to get into exactly why today's episode is different, but I'll ask this preliminary question, and perhaps in your answer, it'll be clear which direction we're going.
0:14.6	But what are primordial black holes, and why should anyone care?
0:19.2	Good. Okay. So primordial black holes are as yet hypothetical. We don't know they exist,
0:24.8	but they're a really intriguing idea, and they were put forward by a few different researchers
0:30.5	more than half a century ago. So the idea has a long history by now. The idea in brief,
0:36.5	and I'm sure we can unpack it together soon,
0:39.3	is that these are black holes that would have formed not through the ordinary route by having a
0:44.4	star that exhausts its nuclear fuel, gravity winds, it collapses and crushes down, and forms
0:52.3	what we now call an astrophysical or a stellar collapse black hole.
0:55.4	We now know those are real, and they litter the universe.
0:58.9	They're very common, in fact, these stellar collapse or astrophysical black holes.
1:03.9	These primordial black holes are hypothesized to follow a different route,
1:09.6	that they would actually short-circuit all of stellar evolution,
1:13.3	and it would form by the direct collapse of some original early universe or primordial lumpiness,
1:20.4	some in homogeneity in the distribution of matter and energy,
1:24.6	which is different from saying you had a star and a whole life sign and collapse.
1:28.4	So these things could form not only independent of stars, but long, long before there existed
1:33.9	stars. In fact, before there existed stable atoms. So these really have a very, very different
1:38.9	history if they exist in our cosmos. And so we can unpack that and talk about it some more, but one among many
1:46.2	reasons why they're now of interest to a growing number of researchers across fundamental physics
1:50.9	and astronomy and cosmology is because these might be a candidate, for example, for dark matter,
	...

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