The Scientists Ep. 5: Steven Weinberg’s Legacy, Religion, and Cosmology

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Brian Keating reflects on the life and legacy of Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, the legendary physicist and writer whose influence shaped generations of scientists and thinkers. Driven by the regret of never having hosted Weinberg on the show before his passing, Brian takes listeners on a deeply personal journey—from his formative college years, inspired by Weinberg’s groundbreaking book "The First Three Minutes," to his thoughts on the intersection of science, meaning, and religion. Join Brian Keating as he honors a hero, wrestles with big questions, and invites you to reflect on what truly makes life—and science—impossible to ignore. - The Scientists is a documentary-style podcast series hosted by astrophysicist Brian Keating. Each episode explores the untold stories behind history’s greatest minds—from Nobel laureates to visionary misfits—revealing the personal struggles, intellectual triumphs, and paradigm-shifting ideas that changed the world. Each week, I dive into the life and legacy of a legendary scientist—experimentalists, theorists, and observers alike—and uncover insights you can apply to your own work and worldview. Science didn’t appear fully formed; it was built by real people solving real problems under pressure. Their ideas still shape our future. We’ll examine not just what they discovered, but who they were—from their obsessions and honors to their most spectacular ideas, brilliant blunders, and beautifully human flaws. New episodes weekly. Learn more at BrianKeating.com. 🎙️ Subscribe for compelling science storytelling. 📚 Listen to our companion series Into the Impossible for interviews with living legends. #science #sciencepodcast #historyofscience #nobelprizewinners #famousscientists #scientificdiscoveries #physics #chemistry #thescientistsbriankeating #intotheimpossible #sciencecommunication 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.
0:13.4	Open the pod bay doors, hell.
0:16.2	Hey friends, this is a first in the Into the Impossible podcast history, a solo episode with yours truly opining on something important to me,
0:26.1	which is the passing of perhaps the one guest that I most wish that I had had on the podcast in years.
0:35.5	And now, sadly, I'll never get him on the podcast because Stephen Weinberg
0:39.5	passed away at age 88 this past summer in July. And although he did overlap with past guest
0:46.7	Shelley Glashow in a wonderful, quite delightful series of interactions ranging from their growing up together as kids in
0:56.2	Bronx Science High School, the famed Bronx Science High School where so many Nobel
1:02.0	laureates came from, I think it's second only to a few different countries in Europe as to
1:07.4	Nobel laureates that came out of that wonderful school.
1:20.2	And Stephen's passing closes the door forever in a way that affected me such that I really had some regrets about how I take the direction of the podcast and the people I'm choosing
1:25.2	to interview.
1:26.5	You know that I, you know, that I, you know, have
1:28.2	prioritized laureates, have won Nobel Prizes, not just because they're, you know, have won
1:33.4	these prizes, but because of the human beings that they are. And what they mean to society,
1:39.4	what they represent, not the least of which is because many of them are getting old. And if you
1:43.5	have read
1:44.7	my latest book, Into the Impossible, you will know that the impetus behind recording
1:50.9	these interviews really stem from the passing of snubbed laureate, a man who really truly
1:58.2	did lose the Nobel Prize. And that was, of course, Freeman Dyson, my first guest on The Into the Impossible podcast.
2:04.8	And his death led an urgent sense to the podcast production
2:08.6	and to actually turn the interviews with these laureates into a book,
	...

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