Any sufficiently advanced technology is

advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

A legendary figure in my life in physics, in cosmology, and philosophy, in mathematics.

And that is Professor Lee Smallin joining us from the Perimeter Institute,

our neighbor to the north. Lee Smallin, how are you today, my friend?

I'm very well, thank you, and thank you very much for the kind words and the

invitation.

Well, you've been such a huge influence on my life.

Since before we met going back to our mutual,

our mutual friend, Dr. Professor Stephan Alexander Gays and and he has his connecting me to you

way back in the early 2000s and so he gets an intellectual shout out. So Lee you've made fundamental contributions in many different aspects of cosmology, of physics, philosophy, but what I first want to turn to is the influence that you had on me as a younger physicist as a beginning professor back in 2006

when you're really a pockel book called The Trouble with Physics came out.

This book influenced me and a whole generation of physicists, both theoreticians and experimentalists like myself.

And there are very few books that in physics that are relevant 14 15

16 four years three years two years after they're written let alone 15 years

after and in this book which I reread

re-listen to recently in preparation for this interview I noted that you were

talking about the stagnation in physics in the previous 25 years so if I add I'm not as good at math as you are but if I

add 25 to 15 I get 40. Wow I do too. Do you still stand by that or do you still observe that same stagnation to some extent in physics at least in

theoretical physics? Obviously experimental physics is completely different.

There are certainly areas which are doing very well.

There are areas of minor materials where the theory is really interesting and what does

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