Brian Keating’s Losing the Nobel Prize Makes a Good Point but … | Ethan Siegel &Timothy Nguyen

Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel and mathematician and AI researcher Timothy Nguyen discuss both the science and the sociology behind Brian Keating's book Losing the Nobel Prize. They discuss the scientific background of inflation, a summary of Brian Keating's BICEP2 experiments, problems with the Nobel prize, doubts about Keating's candidacy for the Nobel prize, and what an over-focus on prizes ignores. The discussion is an expanded version of Ethan Siegel's book review titled "Losing the Nobel Prize Makes a Good Point But Misses a Great One".
Patreon: / timothynguyen
Timestamps:
00:05 : Critiquing your colleagues
00:44 : Crash course on cosmology and inflation
16:37 : Brian Keating's BICEP2 experiments
18:24 : The importance of acknowledging prior work on inflation
19:49 : Did Brian Keating really lose the Nobel Prize? Who else would have been awarded?
20:55 : Restrictions on the Nobel Prize. Some scientists who did and didn't get the prize.
22:07 : What about Guth? Linde? Albrecht? Steinhardt? Allen?
23:17 : "I seriously doubt Brian Keating's name would have even been among those considered..."
23:38 : The takeaway: It's not about Brian Keating. Focusing on individual prizes overlooks the collaborative nature of science.
#nobelprize #cosmos #astronomy
Ethan Siegel's article:
www.forbes.com/sites/startswi...
Twitter:
@iamtimnguyen
Webpage:
www.timothynguyen.org

[@scullion01]

Wow. Ethan was so methodical, detailed and eloquent in the explanation of inflation.

[@eismscience]

Thanks for this exchange. Siegel impresses me more and more with his ability to single-handedly pump out so much great content, and his balanced and objective approach is refreshing. It is unfortunate that he does not get more of a following compared to others who adopt questionable inellectual postures, such as "I'm not going to respond to a reasonable critique of my work because one of the authors is anonymous." What an embarassing crock, and what a refreshing counter Siegel is. Thanks again.

[@pietropipparolo4329]

Tim, the chip on your shoulder is all too obvious....lol

[@neopolyphenism]

Brilliantly explained. Thanks for all the detail Ethan!

[@bobw857]

Nobel? Oscar? Awards…Who cares? The work matters. In this video I appreciate the wonderfully clear explanation of inflation. It would be interesting to hear Dr. Siegel address the objections of Roger Penrose to inflation.

[@landoishisname]

You should note; nobel prize winners also get money, so who gets $1m is semi-important

[@kenhiett5266]

This critique is a good one and say this as someone who likes Brian and his channel.

[@glenrotchin5523]

I have the sense that the turning point in the sciences came when it became a cultural phenomenon, Einstein was turned into a media star, and the focus was suddenly no longer on the actual physics of how the universe works and experimentation, but on theory, the human-centered thought process. I would never say that it’s not important to communicate scientific ideas clearly, but Wolfram (who names everything after himself), Weinstein, Keating, and others seem more interested in using the available mass media to promote themselves and their ideas, than to prove them experimentally. It’s not a recipe for good science.

[@petertomshany]

This is a great exploration of how modern manifestations of fame and notoriety (read: popular culture) are a challenge to the potential of science. Although the possibility of fame in science says to me that more people want to be (and *should* get) involved in the business of discovery (not to mention checking each others’ work 😉).

[@tasosfoobaridis7623]

Thank both of you for the interview . Are you going to post the whole interview here ?

[@TimothyNguyen]

Yes stay tuned!

[@tasosfoobaridis7623]

@@TimothyNguyen Great! Thanks again.

[@Raytheon222]

Wow! Crash course from Ethan Siegel!

[@brianboyle2681]

It’s super embarrassing for Keating to be talking about winning/losing a Nobel prize like this. It’s like someone saying “I want to be famous” when asked what their ambition is. Plus, the list of massively significant figures across the fields covered by the Nobel that were overlooked for the award for whatever reason during their lifetimes is huge. To write a book on how you have lost a Nobel prize when you are living a comfortable academic life, doing some good work (and at least previously) had the respect of your field/colleagues/community is a bit pathetic.

[@CrucialFlowResearch]

He lost respect by claiming he lost a Nobel prize, ironic

[@edcunion]

Much enjoyed this book review, your Big Think weekly KZbins and also enjoy Tim's measured technically competent approach to reviewing his peers. Query- could an observer in a universe gravitationally collapsing toward a zero gravity Hamiltonian centroid tell whether their universe was expanding into nothing or collapsing? In the collapsing case, which is posited to also create space on the fly in a self-compensating manner, both clumps of fermions and their bosons nearer the spherical boundary horizon, would appear gravitationally red shifted, as universal acceleration increases toward it's leading "edges", though appears to observers as being expansion red shifted, as universal acceleration would increase toward the distant spherical horizon or shell? The shell would be a relatively homogenous, 2D light speed surface of "infinite" density, where the speed of light, sound, and universal acceleration reach parity at an infinitely thin 2D boundary. The self-compensation phenomena occurs at the surface and keeps the centroid region at or near the 0,0,0 centroid over time, that would be a zero acceleration point, with observed weightless phenomena like an observer being in free fall, with the distant boundary surface compensating the three vector scales while also keeping the spatial vectors orthogonal? Might this tie-in with Mach's principle, and the surface having an entangled universal light-sound-acceleration spherical memory effect that is spherical and harmonic? The best estimate is fermions are average spheres too and these contain & confine bosons we can't see, that have very strong enclosing light speed surface boundaries too, containing smaller volumes, in the case of protons and neutrons, of older than the CMB primordial quark gluon plasma bits? Just a query!

[@SpotterVideo]

What do the Twistors of Roger Penrose and the Hopf Fibrations of Eric Weinstein and the "Belt Trick" of Paul Dirac have in common? In Spinors it takes two complete turns to get down the "rabbit hole" (Alpha Funnel 3D--->4D) to produce one twist cycle (1 Quantum unit). Can both Matter and Energy be described as "Quanta" of Spatial Curvature? (A string is revealed to be a twisted cord when viewed up close.) Mass= 1/Length, with each twist cycle of the 4D Hypertube proportional to Planck’s Constant. In this model Alpha equals the compactification ratio within the twistor cone, which is approximately 1/137. 1= Hypertubule diameter at 4D interface 137= Cone’s larger end diameter at 3D interface where the photons are absorbed or emitted. The 4D twisted Hypertubule gets longer or shorter as twisting or untwisting occurs. (720 degrees per twist cycle.) If quarks have not been isolated and gluons have not been isolated, how do we know they are not parts of the same thing? The tentacles of an octopus and the body of an octopus are parts of the same creature. Is there an alternative interpretation of "Asymptotic Freedom"? What if Quarks are actually made up of twisted tubes which become physically entangled with two other twisted tubes to produce a proton? Instead of the Strong Force being mediated by the constant exchange of gluons, it would be mediated by the physical entanglement of these twisted tubes. When only two twisted tubules are entangled, a meson is produced which is unstable and rapidly unwinds (decays) into something else. A proton would be analogous to three twisted rubber bands becoming entangled and the "Quarks" would be the places where the tubes are tangled together. The behavior would be the same as rubber balls (representing the Quarks) connected with twisted rubber bands being separated from each other or placed closer together producing the exact same phenomenon as "Asymptotic Freedom" in protons and neutrons. The force would become greater as the balls are separated, but the force would become less if the balls were placed closer together. Therefore, the gluon is a synthetic particle (zero mass, zero charge) invented to explain the Strong Force. The "Color Force" is a consequence of the XYZ orientation entanglement of the twisted tubules. The two twisted tubule entanglement of Mesons is not stable and unwinds. It takes the entanglement of three twisted tubules to produce the stable proton.

[@edcunion]

Roy Kerr's new paper, 60 years after his best known work that outlined and defined the Kerr metric, queries the idea of Schwarzschild non spiñning black hole point singularities, is a good read. Its easy to visualize a static perfect sphere with a centroid, spin introduces some complexity that may disprove the singular point black hole centroid in our 4D universe, as everything has spin angular momentum in our spacetime particularly ellipsoids?

[@Linguae_Music]

When people say "why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for life" It's not actually a very interesting question, because if we were not here, we would not be able to ask the question in the first place. The ability to ask the question "Why is the universe fine tuned" is, itself, contingent on fine tuning... and so asserting that fine tuning is "special" in some way, is a logical fallacy, based on nothing but intuition. As we do not have another example of a universe to compare our own to. Imagine this: There is a gas in a container, and it happens to be curious as to why it's container is the exact same shape and volume as itself... Well, they are obviously contingent! So the question is inherently silly... when asked in a *certain context.

[@alexdevisscher6784]

Brian Keating didn't "lose" the Nobel Prize. There never was a Nobel in what he was doing in the first place, and he didn't realize that until after the fact.

[@phpn99]

What if the expansion of the universe wasn't uniform in space and time, and even fluctuates owing to a broad scale factor that escapes the limits of our observation ?

[@markcarey67]

Cosmic inflation happens when the money supply of the universe does not match the fundamental economic production capacity of the universe.

[@BrettHar123]

How does Ethan think inflation solves the problem of the extremely unlikely precision of the Past Hypotheses, which Roger Penrose estimated to be 1 in 10-120? Any other configuration would simply make the problem worse?

[@rossmcleod7983]

After I found out Keating contributes to PragerU, I lost all respect. In truth never had much time for him anyhow. Interesting conversation Tim, thankyou.

[@ES-sb3ei]

Urgh, disappointing but not surprising

[@44yyBBaakk]

In what way does this thing interfere with his scientific work? From the content I have watched, he does not do political commentary, so its seems weird to lose the respect of a scientist just because of his political position

[@tp1357]

@@44yyBBaakk then you havent watched many of his videos. hes starting to get more and more political and interacts with very clearly politically aligned figures in those discussions. hes a deeply confused and silly person in a lot respects.

[@christopherhamilton3621]

@@44yyBBaakk It’s not just his political/religious bent: it’s his hubris & arrogance. The Prager bit is just the proverbial ‘straw/camel’ over top. Have you followed all the argument against him and his “I wuz robbed” narrative BS?

[@Daniel-ih4zh]

I don't know why people can't evaluate people in independent walks of life...

[@rajeevgangal542]

I have subscribed to his podcast as well as sean Carroll's etc. While he says he kids about the Nobel, it's cringe worthy each time he feigns joking or jesting. Like what he doing but yeah not too enamoured of this refrain

[@queenvrook]

A comment that could easily be interpreted as snarky but is meant seriously: I'm impressed with Timothy Nguyen's ability to look interested throughout this long and somewhat overwhelming description

[@debyton]

What explains you also explains all the rest. {LIVE Science; Forums, History and Culture; Culture History & Science; What is a living individual and is it naturally universally mobile?}

[@BAROMETERONE]

Ethan is a wonderful communicator. I'd love to have a conversation with this guy. Tim too for that matter.

[@drbuckley1]

Sour grapes are understandable but a bit undignified for my tastes.

[@sedalia9356]

++ expressing and communicating knowledge and useful ideas -- keeping your weird kink and insecurities inside, where they belong.

[@shoopinc]

"Oh interesting" - Timothy Nguyen

[@fred_2021]

No clue what they're talking about. I'm here to see the amazing whiskers :)

[@Achrononmaster]

Ethan is most likely dead wrong at this precise point @5:25 "... that's weird...". It is *_not_* weird. Have a talk to Neil Turok. If CPT is an exact symmetry it turns out thermodynamics favours overwhelmingly a flat isotopic homogeneous initial universe. So the currently observed causally separated regions did not have to be able to "talk to" each other. Out of all the ways a CPT symmetric big bang could have happened, a ridiculously huge fraction would be flat, isotropic, homogeneous. There is now literally no need for Inflaton Theory, it is bogus pseudo-science, and moreover the empirical evidence from the tensor modes (no primordial gravity waves chaps) has all but ruled out inflation theory (which is not even a theory, it's a model fit ersatz).

[@redmed10]

What happened to ' the work is its own reward'.

[@brianboyle2681]

.

[@redmed10]

@@brianboyle2681 Good point.

[@SamLabbato]

so in other words, what we need is not more studies, but more data. We need better designed computers/tools programmed specifically to detect certain electromagnetic signals, but also designed to not pick up the opposite scale of the same signal. for example, a camera's going to pick up and record visible light in a resolution that we can understand, but we need a device that can pick up Gamma Rays from lightyears away, take incremental "pictures" so we have multiple data sets (and cause lightyear neighbors are going to take a while to get back to us), and make sure our receiver is big enough and on the right hemisphere of the earth to receive it at the right time, and that those gamma rays (or microwaves by the time they reach us) don't pass through a bunch of civilians causing a bunch of health issues. from that point, we'd just need better designed "modern" computers to PROCESS that data, through executables on a binary byte computer OR a subatomic computer that works off electrons, protons and raw chemical reactions to transfer data. We need to first identify the type of language they're using, understand the scale by which they operate, the frequency of changes in language, and WHY it changes if at all in the first place. But first and foremost, we need to make sure we're asking the right questions with the right type of radiation or magnetism.

[@vtrandal]

I am still waiting for this guy to take a breath after 15 minutes of nonstop talking.

[@thedouglasw.lippchannel5546]

I wonder what these gentlemen think of CIG Theory?

[@user-ri1is5nm8b]

Uncle Fester's evil twin makes a good point: people are too stupid to wade through his own bullcrap

[@jsnedd66]

the universe began with ENTANGLEMENT then came expiation/inflation

[@LittleOrla]

They gave the Nobel Peace Award to Obama. 'Nuff said.

[@timewalker6654]

There is difference in nobel for sciences and Peace.

[@TomTom-rh5gk]

What crap. Scientists claim that the universe is uniform and if it is uniform there never was one part of the universe that was ever different than any other part.

[@collybeans586]

So this is a channel dedicated to attacking people who is doing real work?

[@christopherhamilton3621]

No: it’s taking a hard look at evidence/science: like real science ought to.

[@pietropipparolo4329]

Tim,have you considered taking some university courses in 4 D tensor calculus, special & general relativity and quantum mechanics.Soecify the courses for laymen so you dont get intellectually overwhelmed.

[@pietropipparolo4329]

Tim, if you're patient and willing to wait 50 to 60 years , & work continuously in physics, you also may reach the level of Eric Weinstein ,ph.D in mathematical physics, and the developer of the groundbreaking UNIFIED GEOMETRY.But...honestly...dont hold your breath.