Podcasts · Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
316 | Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper
· 1 h 29 min · Episode 316
Episode 316 | Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper
Einstein's general theory of relativity, plus some reasonable assumptions about the universe and what it's made of, has a remarkable implication: that as we trace cosmic evolution into the far past, we ultimately hit a singularity of infinite density and curvature, the Big Bang. Did that really happen? Einstein's theory is classical, after all, and the world is quantum. And whose to say what assumptions are reasonable? Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper have written a new book, Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins, that surveys all of the mind-bending possibilities.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/05/26/316-niayesh-afshordi-and-phil-halper-on-the-big-bang-and-before/
Support Mindscape on Patreon.
Niayesh Afshordi received a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Princeton University. He is currently a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo, and associate faculty in the cosmology and gravitation group at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
• Web site • Perimeter web page • Waterloo web page • Google scholar publications
Phil Halper is a science communicator and a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. His astronomy images have been featured in major media outlets including The Washington Post, the BBC, and The Guardian, and he has published several papers in peer-reviewed journals.
• YouTube channel (Skydivephil)
Links in the notes 8
- https://nafshordi.com/2024/10/19/battle-of-the-big-bang-new-tales-of-our-cosmic-origins/
- https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/05/26/316-niayesh-afshordi-and-phil-halper-on-the-big-bang-and-before/
- https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll
- https://nafshordi.com/
- https://perimeterinstitute.ca/people/niayesh-afshordi
- https://uwaterloo.ca/physics-astronomy/profile/nafshord
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xWZGFlEAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://www.youtube.com/@PhilHalper1
Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.