End of Inflation Theory? Neil Turok’s Bold New Mirror Universe Hypothesis Explained

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2025

⏱️ 97 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Visit Consensus.app and Enter code KEATING at checkout for 40% off Consensus Premium for 2 Years or visit this link 👉 https://bit.ly/ConsensusApp Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Is the key to understanding our universe hidden in its mirror image? Are the answers cosmologists seek much simpler than we think? And can we explain the origin of the universe without inflation? Here today to share his bold new theory is the renowned physicist and cosmologist Neil Turok. Neil, who specializes in mathematical and early-universe physics, is the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh and Director Emeritus of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Recently, he’s been getting a lot of attention for proposing a simpler, more testable cosmological model that replaces inflation with a CPT-symmetric Mirror Universe, explaining dark matter, cosmic flatness, and density variations without adding unnecessary complexity. Join us as we explore this provocative new theory in depth! 👉 ‘Cosmic Inflation’: did the early cosmos balloon in size? A mirror universe going backwards in time may be a simpler explanation by Neil Turok: https://shorturl.at/jr8kd — Key Takeaways: 00:00:00 Audio essay 00:17:02 Introduction 00:20:53 Going backwards in time? 00:26:26 Symmetry and broken symmetry in physics 00:29:02 CPT symmetry and its implications 00:37:56 Mirror universes and Sakharov conditions 00:41:43 Dark matter and right-handed neutrinos 00:57:34 Lambda CDM model and inflation 01:06:34 Conformal symmetry and Big Bang singularity 01:14:06 Dimension zero fields and quantum fluctuations 01:24:56 Anomally collection and standard model predictions 01:32:24 Where do we go from here? 01:35:03 Outro — Additional resources: ➡️ Learn more about Neil Turok: 📚 The Universe Within: https://a.co/d/5uzujNz 📚 Endless Universe: https://a.co/d/aJo2yIN ➡️ 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

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week, something very interesting happened in the milieu surrounding the deep cuts to funding at federal agencies due to the incoming Trump and Elon Musk regime, which I'm broadly supportive of these cuts.
0:15.5	And that makes me sort of a contrarian in my field of a scientist and academician.
0:20.1	Many scientists and academicians are
0:22.1	decrying the cuts as essentially leading to the demise of academia and science. I just think that's
0:27.2	overwrought. We know of a great deal of abuse of waste that occurs at universities where much of the
0:32.3	research in federal government takes place. Not all, certainly, but the research that I do in physics and cosmology broadly
0:39.0	occurs primarily at the forefront, either at national laboratories or at universities like mine,
0:45.1	UC San Diego. And at universities, very few people know this, but professor who gets a grant for a million
0:49.7	dollars at a university like UCSD will pay over 50% to the university. It was called indirect or fringe
0:56.6	costs and that goes to the support of the university, allegedly, it goes to the support of the
1:01.2	university, the laboratory space, etc. But in reality, it goes to support all the other departments
1:06.6	that don't generate any income, my friends, in sociology and Chicano studies and so forth.
1:12.8	They may have small grants, which are also subject to overhead, but most of them do not.
1:17.8	So, you know, the gender studies department here generates very little income, literature,
1:22.7	and I'm not denouncing them at all.
1:25.0	I've co-taught in literature with my friend Ray Armandrout,
1:28.6	Pulitzer Prize winner. We taught a class called Poetry for physicists in contradistinction to
1:34.2	physics for poets. But getting back on topic, the overhead fringe rate of 50% at UCSD
1:39.8	is pales in comparison to that at private institutions like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Caltech, some of the places I've been to, Brown.
1:49.0	And that could be over 60%. So you're talking about less money going to the researcher when they apply and receive at one or two percent odds.
1:58.4	Their million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation,
2:01.9	for example, $68 cents can go to the university so that they may have a Chicano Studies Department.
	...

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