A conversation with Jordan Peterson
I was featured this month on Jordan Peterson’s podcast. The experience was quite illuminating and informative, especially considering what we did not speak about: culture wars, politics, and the physics of cancel culture.
Subject: Exploring the Mysteries of the Universe — Episode Recap
Jordan and I went deep into the complexities of the universe, exploring its properties such as radiation, and polarization, and its expansion due to dark energy. We also delved into the various theories and discoveries that have collectively formed our understanding of the universe today.
We learned that there are infinite colors in the spectrum that can be represented by wavelength, and this has led to the interpretation of the cosmic microwave background radiation as originating from the earliest minutes of the universe.
We also discussed the role of dust in scientific research and the confirmation of Einstein’s ‘biggest blunder’ involving dark energy, as well as the possibility of the universe expanding until it rips apart.
The episode also highlighted the importance of ethical training in the physical sciences and how crucial replication is to the accuracy of scientific discoveries. We dove deep into the fourth dimension of spacetime, the linearity of Hubble’s Law, and the differences in gravitational attraction between close and far objects in the universe.
Finally, we wrapped up the episode by discussing the challenging yet rewarding nature of teaching the physical sciences and how scientific discovery can have a teachable impact on a diverse audience.
If you’re interested in learning more about the universe and its complexities, make sure to tune in here.
Detailed topics:
Introduction:
- Light has three major properties: intensity, color, and polarization.
- Radiation is just a generic term for light of different wavelengths.
- There’s an infinite number of colors in the spectrum because the number that describes the color of light is called its wavelength, and it can be any number of decimal places.
- The electromagnetic spectrum includes infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves, etc.
Cosmology:
- The red shift that we observe for the universe means that every galaxy exhibits a red shift — that is, every galaxy is moving away from the Milky Way galaxy.
- This observation, when extrapolated to the future, means the universe is going to become more and more dilute, and at the beginning of its infancy was with the Big Bang.
- Einstein initially believed in the cosmological constant, or dark energy, which he used to explain why the universe appeared static in 1919.
- When Hubble observed the universe expanding, Einstein admitted his mistake and referred to the inclusion of the cosmological constant as his biggest blunder.
- Dark energy phenomenon causes acceleration in the expansion of the universe.
- The universe will continue to expand faster and faster.
- Einstein’s conjecture was confirmed in the late 1990s through observations of Type One supernovae.
- Precision is essential in cosmology and we now know the age of the universe with an accuracy of less than 1%.
- Dark energy could affect the future development of the universe in potentially negative ways.
- In the distant future, the universe could rip apart and there could be a breakdown in all laws of physics.
- There is a tension between estimates of how fast the universe is expanding today and 13 billion years ago.
- The best way to understand the laws of nature is to start from today and work backward to the point before we do not understand the laws of physics.
- Going back 13.8 billion years, the laws of physics that we currently can understand were frozen into the configuration that we see today.
- Beyond this point, there is an ignorance horizon, beyond which we can only speculate. But even with limited data, we can still extract information about that period.
- The cosmic microwave background is the leftover heat from the fusion of the first elements in the universe.
- Gravitational radiation arises when there is matter in motion and spacetime reverberates.
- Gravitational radiation was famously discovered by the LIGO experiment in 2015 when two black holes coalesced into one, causing a reverberation of spacetime called a gravitational wave.
Multiverse:
- The story of the universe’s creation relies on the inflationary theory, which relies on the existence of a quantum field called the inflaton and a multiverse.
- Inflation happened an infinite number of times, and we live in a galaxy filled with dust, which obscured the signal scientists were looking for but mimicked the signal from the multiverse, resulting in the false claim of detecting physical evidence for the multiverse.
- The discovery did lead to the idea of a multiverse but it did not hold up as a conclusion.
- The podcast host gave the guest a chunk of rock that is actually a meteorite.
- The meteorite is 4.3 billion years old and made of iron, cobalt, and nickel.
- The meteorite shares magnetic properties with the Earth and can attach to a magnetic field.
- The Milky Way galaxy has a magnetic field, which can cause the twisting and curling of the emission from dust particles.
- This caused an illusion that the universe began with inflation, which the scientists initially thought was the case.
- However, further assessment and collaboration with another team disproved this hypothesis.
- Scientists are like children, curious and playful but also competitive and seeking affirmation and credit.
- Teachers in the physical sciences are not taught how to teach.
- There is a lack of ethical training in the physical sciences.
- Discovering something significant in their field is important for making a living but can also be a teachable moment.
- The discovery of evidence for the multiverse was undone by dust, highlighting confirmation bias and the replication crisis in their field.
Other topics:
- In 1995, the speaker heard Stephen Hawking speak at a Royal Astronomical Society meeting in London, where Hawking used a special keyboard to answer one question, taking about 10 minutes to respond.
- Hawking wrote a book about the collapse of the universe, which was based on the belief that the universe would eventually collapse on itself, but did not account for dark energy, which causes the universe to expand.
- Scientists were consumed with the notion of dust and its impact on their research, funding, and reputation.
- 70 Nobel Prize winners wrote a letter to President Trump to express their support for gain of function research.
- The idolization of the Nobel Prize in science affects not just funding and hiring, but also makes front-page news.
- The universe is not just three-dimensional, but also exists in the fourth dimension of space-time, which is hard to visualize.
- An analogy commonly used is a balloon with dots drawn on its surface, or a raisin bread loaf with raisins inside.
- The expansion of the universe is proportional to distance, described by Hubble’s Law.
- The law’s linearity is essential to producing the structures visible in the universe.
- Gravitational attraction only occurs within close distances, so raisins in bread or dots on a balloon do not experience it like galaxies do.
