meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Harry Cliff: How to Make an Apple Pie ​(#212)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.71.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2022

⏱️ 90 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Win a copy of Harry’s book, HOW TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE! Click here Harry Cliff is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge working on the LHCb experiment, a huge particle detector buried 100 metres underground at CERN near Geneva. He is a member of an international team of around 1400 physicists, engineers and computer scientists who are using LHCb to study the basic building blocks of our universe, in search of answers to some of the biggest questions in modern physics. He also spends a big chunk of his time sharing his love of physics with the public. His first popular science book, How To Make An Apple Pie From Scratch, which will be published in August 2021. From 2012 to 2018 he held a joint post between Cambridge and the Science Museum in London, where he curated two major exhibitions: Collider (2013) and The Sun (2018). He has given a large number of public talks, including at TED and the Royal Institution, and made numerous appearances on television, radio and podcasts. Visit our Sponsor LinkedIn.com/impossible to post a job for FREE! Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, or go to jordanharbinger.com/subscribe 00:00:00 Intro 00:04:00 Origin of the book cover and title 00:07:56 What was your thought process in writing this book? Was it a science career risk? 00:12:04 Is there too much hype in science? Is LHC worth it? 00:18:15 What is an "historic" experiment and why do you refer to them in the book? 00:23:31 When can you trust a theorist? 00:26:25 What's new about the "new" physics? 00:30:16 How far away are the next breakthroughs in physics? 00:30:43 Justifying big physics: Was finding the Higgs boson worth it? 00:34:34 The next big physics machine - and the one that wasn't (The Superconducting Supercollider) 00:38:32 The latest results from LHCb collaboration. 00:47:15 Is this really "new" physics or simply modifications to the standard model and its forces? Anomolies? 00:53:28 What is the elementary particle missing gap to the Standard Model? 00:55:59 On the miraculous "fine-tuning" of the Universe, and thoughts on the multiverse. 01:00:24 What is Harry's day job? (LHCb) 01:07:57 Can we get to a grand unified theory with existing data? 01:14:45 Can you foresee getting more out the existing data with new computational methods? 01:19:15 What would you put in your ethical will? 01:24:00 What would you put on your billion-year time capsule for the future? 01"26:17 What has occurred in your life that you thought was impossible? What advice would you give your younger self? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey friends, I just finished recording another wonderful episode with my new found friend from across the pond, Dr. Harry Cliff.

0:09.0

Harry is a phenomenal communicator of science, he is infectious in his enthusiasm for scientific

0:18.4

discovery and communication. He wrote a wonderful book called How to Make an Apple Pie From Scratch and that's today's episode on Into the Impossible.

0:26.7

Talked about many things in particular the influence that he had from this one kind of throwaway line from the Cosmos series the famous

0:34.9

popularization of science by none other than Carl Sagan. The late husband

0:40.8

of past guest Andruian, put a link to her episode in the show notes and

0:46.1

father of Sasha Say and put a link to her notes, her episode from our conversation in 2020 in the show notes as well.

0:54.9

In this book is kind of a callback, what do they call that?

0:59.7

When you give a shout out to a concept, meme what have you in the popular memosphere and in

1:07.1

Harry's case it was this kind of line that it was this line that Carl Sagan said.

1:12.0

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

1:20.8

So Harry goes through the fascinating history of the elements, the chemical elements,

1:26.2

which really leads us on a tour not only of chemistry, but of the particle physics that underlies

1:31.3

chemistry.

1:32.6

And furthermore, he goes into great detail

1:34.8

on the fascinating discoveries

1:37.4

that he and his colleagues are making

1:38.6

at the Large Hadron Collider.

1:40.0

You'll find that incredibly fascinating.

1:41.8

I did as well. he's just so so delightful

1:46.1

and so so so much fun to talk to you. I know you're going to love this episode.

1:50.0

Please leave a review. We have almost 400 reviews total from around the world.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brian Keating, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Brian Keating and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.