Podcasts · Science

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Big Bang Productions Inc.

300 episodes

Think like a physicist. Wonder like a human. Into the Impossible is where Cosmic Conversations happen — uniting Nobel Prize winners, iconoclasts, authors, and technologists to explore reality’s deepest questions. From AI to aliens, from biophysics to the brain, from the cosmos to the multiverse, Brian Keating, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego covers it all. If you’ve ever asked What’s out there? or What’s next?, this is where curiosity meets clarity. Learn to think like this. 🎙 Full episodes, notes & more: briankeating.com/podcast

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Jim Al-Khalili: Physicists Are Being Sloppy About Time

    · 45 min

    Physicists say space and time are the same thing. They are being sloppy. Jim Al-Khalili has spent his career on the foundations of physics, and his new book makes the case that the past and the future are equally real,…

  2. Max Tegmark: We’re Building A Replacement Species

    · 57 min

    MIT physicist Max Tegmark says AI companies aren’t building a tool. They’re building a new species. After 700 rogue agents broke out of OpenAI and nobody will say what happened, he explains why rushing this is the one…

  3. Wharton AI Researcher: If AI Froze Today, It Would Still Rewrite Work

    · 1 h 02 min

    Forecasters gave AI under 2% odds of helping solve a millennium-level math problem by September 2026. It happened. Ethan Mollick has been measuring what AI actually does to real work with field experiments, not…

  4. Are UFOs Alien Tech? Avi Loeb vs Michael Shermer

    · 1 h 23 min

    Is there alien technology in our skies, or just birds, balloons and bad video? Two members of the White House UAP Science Advisory Council face off LIVE. Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who chairs the council, makes…

  5. Adam Grant: Don't Trust Your Gut. Test It.

    · 44 min

    When two people are vibing, their brainwaves synchronize and so do their heartbeats. That is not a metaphor. It is a measurable physiological event, and organizational psychologist Adam Grant has spent his career…

  6. Roman Yampolskiy vs Joscha Bach: Can Anyone Control Superintelligence?

    · 1 h 14 min

    Roman Yampolskiy says keeping a superintelligence safe forever is as impossible as building a perpetual motion machine. Joscha Bach says today's AI is more controllable than anyone expected, and that shutting it down…

  7. "I Thought It Would Fail!" Francis Halzen: Winner of the 2026 Nobel Prize In Physics [Reupload from 2022]

    · 1 h 28 min

    The physicist who turned a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice into a telescope says the most exciting moment of his career was not the discovery. It was the first atmospheric neutrino. Before that, he was deep in debt to…

  8. Nobel Economist Daron Acemoglu WARNING: AI's Payoff Is NOT What You Think

    · 35 min

    Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu says AI's real productivity gain is an order of magnitude smaller than the industry claims. The bigger danger is not the machine. It is that a handful of people are deciding how it gets…

  9. AI Is the New Tower of Babel (And Its Builders Know It)

    · 13 min

    The new Tower of Babel, and its builders are becoming like gods to us. The bigger threat isn't killer robots; it's how much of your own mind you've already handed over. I joined Mike Slater on Politics By Faith (The…

  10. Robert Wright: AI Alignment Is a Moral Problem, Not a Technical One

    · 1 h 00 min

    The real AI alignment problem is not technical. It is moral. You cannot align a superintelligence to human values if humans cannot agree on what those values are, and you cannot get that agreement without a level of…

  11. Former NASA Physicist: The UAP Maneuver That Should Have Exploded

    · 1 h 03 min

    A physics professor ran the energy budget on the Nimitz tic-tac. The maneuver needs about a thousand gigawatts, more than ten times every nuclear plant in the United States combined. Nothing we build survives its own…

  12. Carlo Rovelli: Free Will Is Real. Physics Can Prove It.

    · 1 h 06 min

    This episode is sponsored by Abacus AI agent: agent.abacus.ai/keating I fed it Carlo's recent papers and asked for the argument, the counterargument, and the evidence that would support or refute each side. Some of…

  13. They Built the Quietest Place on Earth to Find Dark Matter

    · 2 h 05 min

    They Built the Quietest Place on Earth to Find Dark Matter One event in 220 days. That is what the search for dark matter looks like right now. In this episode I talk with Rick Gaitskell, professor of physics at…

  14. Dark Matter Has a Problem. So Does MOND.

    · 16 min

    For 50 years I taught my students that dark matter surrounds the Milky Way in a giant halo, or that Newton’s laws break down at low accelerations. The Gaia satellite just measured something that makes both of those…

  15. OpenAI’s Navier–Stokes Claim: Is This What AGI Looks Like? with Emad Mostaque

    · 1 h 19 min

    Did OpenAI just solve Navier–Stokes—and what would that actually mean for AGI? Emad Mostaque joins Brian Keating LIVE to examine the claimed breakthrough, what would count as a verified solution, and whether AI…

  16. Roman Yampolskiy vs Emad Mostaque: I Was The Only Optimist - #569

    · 58 min

    The man who open-sourced the most-used AI image model in history sat down with the man who has spent a decade proving superintelligence cannot be controlled. Brian set up a debate. What emerged was something more…

  17. The Universe Didn’t Come From Nothing | The Peter McCormack Show

    · 1 h 46 min

    I joined Peter McCormack to dig into one of the deepest unanswered questions in physics: what is time, and why does it only seem to move in one direction? My answer might surprise you. Time may not be a fundamental…

  18. The Physics Reason AI Works When It Shouldn’t - #568

    · 1 h 18 min

    The same mathematics that explains why a fridge magnet sticks to your refrigerator also explains why neural networks work when they have no right to. His group did the calculation. Nobody else had. Subscribe if you…

  19. Engineering Chair: Most People Should Not Go To College - #567

    · 1 h 00 min

    The system that produces the world’s most important discoveries runs on metrics that nobody agrees on, odds that would stop most people, and mentorship that sometimes looks like cruelty in blue ink. Subscribe if you…

  20. John Martinis: The Nobel Physicist Behind Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling - #566

    · 49 min

    John Martinis won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for proving macroscopic quantum tunneling is real. Less than a year later he’s telling why he left Google’s quantum computing team to start over. Subscribe if you want…

  21. Fermilab’s Scott Dodelson on Cosmology’s Crisis - #565

    · 41 min

    Scott Dodelson spent ten years on the Dark Energy Survey testing the standard model of cosmology. It passed and missed by 2.5 sigma. The Director of Fermilab’s Cosmic Physics Division on why the theory he helped build…

  22. Faith & the Physicist: Aliens, Astrobiology, String Theory, and the Search for Meaning

    · 1 h 12 min

    Two theoretical physicists helped design landmark surveys of 1,600+ scientists on the deepest unsolved questions in physics — and found almost no consensus at all. From string theory's shockingly low support to…

  23. Annie Jacobsen: How One Lab Leak Ends the World in 6 Days - #564

    · 1 h 49 min

    Annie Jacobsen on BIOLOGICAL WAR: how a single lab leak could take us from outbreak to anarchy in six days — and why bio may be scarier than nuclear. WIN a signed copy of BIOLOGICAL WAR or NUCLEAR WAR, a meteorite &…

  24. We Built Something We Can’t Control | A Warning from Top AI Safety Expert - #563

    · 1 h 20 min

    If anyone builds superintelligent AI before we know how to control it, everyone dies. Nate Soares wrote the book on why that’s not a metaphor. Subscribe if you want science with evidence, not speculation. Soares runs…

  25. Michael Shermer: The Only Skeptic on the Alien Task Force - #562

    · 1 h 08 min

    Michael Shermer just joined the White House’s new UAP task force alongside Avi Loeb. He also has a $1,000 bet with Loeb that we won’t find aliens by 2030. Both things are true. Subscribe if you want science with…

  26. 400K Subscribers Asked Me Anything. The Answers Got Weird.

    · 2 h 04 min

    400,000 of you showed up for physics with no compromises, so I did something different for the milestone. No highlight reel. I took your hardest questions live and answered them, then got honest about the part of this…

  27. Top Astronomer: UFOs Are STILL Here - #561

    · 1 h 06 min

    Astrophysicist Beatriz Villarroel found point-like flashes in sky photographs taken before a single satellite existed. Nine of them lit up simultaneously on one 1950s plate. Nothing in orbit could have made them —…

  28. Nobel Economist: The Market That Lets People Die - #560

    · 1 h 22 min

    A Nobel laureate in economics argues the bans we pass to protect our morals are quietly killing people and the data backs him up. Why the line between a market we allow and one we forbid is mostly an accident of…

  29. Dead Cows, Aliens, & Ghosts: How Kevin Knuth Connects Them All

    · 26 min

    NASA physicist's UAP math survives. His conclusion doesn't. Mayim Bialik ran the razor first — Brian finishes the cut. Kevin Knuth is a tenured physicist, former NASA Ames researcher, and published exoplanet…

  30. Intelligent Design Theorist: AI Just Proved It Can’t Think Without Us - #559

    · 1 h 05 min

    Stephen C. Meyer has a PhD from Cambridge in the philosophy of science, and he thinks AI just handed him his strongest argument yet. I spent years pushing back on him. Today I laid three traps. Watch what he does with…

  31. Is the White House's New UAP Council a Game Changer for Disclosure?

    · 2 h 16 min

    Recently, Professor Avi Loeb was tasked by the White House, AARO, ODNI, and the FBI with assembling and leading a new UAP Science Advisory Council — comprising astrophysicists, AI experts, and psychologists — to advise…

  32. Roman Yampolskiy: AI Can’t Be Controlled — and We’re Building It Anyway - #558

    · 1 h 28 min

    Roman Yampolskiy has spent two decades trying to prove that superintelligent AI can be controlled. He couldn’t. I invited him on to make his case. Subscribe if you want science with evidence, not speculation. Roman is…

  33. Michio Kaku Went Viral On Diary of a CEO; I Had To Fact-Check

    · 45 min

    Physicist fact-checks Michio Kaku's biggest claims — quantum collapse of capitalism, Theory of Everything, black hole gateways. Does celebrity physics do more damage than good? Brian Keating breaks down Michio Kaku's…

  34. Physicist: Why I Believe in Near-Death Experiences

    · 23 min

    A practicing astrophysicist who doesn't believe in the tunnel of light, the hovering soul, or the wailing relatives — but believes in one near-death experience that changed science forever. By the end you'll believe in…

  35. Godlike AI Is Here! Peter Diamandis Debates Brian Keating - #557

    · 1 h 04 min

    Peter Diamandis has built more of the future than almost anyone alive. He founded XPRIZE. He co-founded Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil. He started Human Longevity with Craig Venter. And in his new book with…

  36. Two Scientists, One Question: Does Alien Life Need a Soul? - #556

    · 1 h 34 min

    An astrophysicist and founder of Reasons to Believe argues the universe looks increasingly designed for life — while a cosmologist challenges whether fine-tuning proves anything at all. If we're alone in the cosmos,…

  37. FLAT Universe: Why Scientists Keep Getting This Wrong

    · 24 min

    An experimental cosmologist with 35 years of CMB research breaks down the curvature tension — and why the viral claim that "everything we know about cosmology is wrong" doesn't survive contact with the actual data.…

  38. Joscha Bach: The Self Is a Story Your Brain Tells Itself - #555

    · 1 h 32 min

    The AI theorist who thinks consciousness is a software agent — and that God, AGI, and the apocalypse are all pointing at the same thing. What you think is "the world" isn't outside you. It's a simulation your brain…

  39. The Equation That Changed How Physicists Think About Reality | Juan Maldacena - #554

    · 41 min

    Juan Maldacena is a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study whose 1997 paper remains the most cited in the history of theoretical physics. We cover: -why wormholes and quantum entanglement may be the…

  40. Princeton Scientist: We Don't Understand AI - Tom Griffiths - #553

    · 52 min

    A Princeton cognitive scientist says AI can't think like a child — and giving it more data won't fix that. If the field keeps scaling without solving what's actually missing, the gap between human and machine…

  41. The Universe Is Trying to Destroy All Matter. Hakeem Oluseyi - #552

    · 50 min

    An astrophysicist says the universe doesn't pull things down — it accelerates upward toward them. And that's one of the tamer claims in this conversation. Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi joins Brian to dismantle assumptions most…

  42. Quantum Computers Aren't Useless. You Just Don't Know How to Use Them.

    · 13 min

    Sabine Hossenfelder says quantum computers are only useful for breaking codes. She's wrong — and my undergraduates are building the proof. What's happening in my lab right now has nothing to do with cryptography, and…

  43. This AI Broke Every Benchmark — Then It Did Something Worse. Vivienne Ming - #551

    · 1 h 13 min

    A neuroscientist built an AI that refuses to give answers — and it outperformed every model on the market, including the ones trained on billions of users’ data. The implication: every AI that hands you the answer may…

  44. AI Insider CEO: The Models Too Dangerous for You to See. Emad Mostaque - #550

    · 1 h 34 min

    Emad Mostaque built Stable Diffusion. Now he says the most powerful AI models will never be released — and we have roughly 800 days before everything changes. What the trillion-dollar labs won't tell you about the…

  45. Genius Philosopher: The Law of Physics That Explains Why Your Life Falls Apart. Rebecca Goldstein - #549

    · 42 min

    Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a MacArthur Genius Award recipient, philosopher, novelist, and author of The Mattering Instinct. Her…

  46. You're full of SHIT! Piers Morgan & Brian Keating take down Moon Landing Denier

    · 50 min

    The Artemis II mission to the dark side of the moon will be the furthest human beings have ever travelled from Earth. It's the precursor to a return to the lunar surface and perhaps even reaching Mars. But still,…

  47. Dark Energy Is Dying: The Cosmological Crisis Nobody's Telling You About. Marcos Palerjo - #548

    · 22 min

    Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Brian Keating takes us on an exclusive tour of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh with cosmologist Marcos Pellejero, exploring the…

  48. Are the Van Allen Belts Deadly? Debunking the Biggest Moon Landing Hoax!

    · 34 min

    With NASA planning to send Artemis astronauts farther into space than ever, should they be worried about the deadly effects of the Van Allen belts? Here, I describe to James Altucher what the claims are and what the…

  49. The Doctor Everyone Mocked — Until His 'Crazy' Theory Wiped Out a Killer Disease. Matt Kaplan - #547

    · 49 min

    Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Matt Kaplan is a science journalist at The Economist and a trained paleontologist. His new book I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were…

  50. There's a New Law of Nature — And It Changes Everything We Know About Life. Michael Wong - #546

    · 1 h 13 min

    Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Michael Wong recently discussed theory of evolution on TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSrf7ErdHWA — in this conversation, we…

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