Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - How Poetry Can Enhance Our Knowledge of Cosmology with Joseph Conlon [Ep. 471]

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 How should we communicate big ideas? How do science and poetry differ in their communication of knowledge? And can poetry enhance our understanding of cosmology?  Today, I’m joined by the renowned theoretical physicist and author of the thought-provoking book “Origins,” Joseph Conlon. In his book, Joseph reveals the origins of our universe through two long-form poems. With his extensive expertise in cosmology and philosophical thought, he sheds light on how the language of science not only explains the cosmos but also inspires us to reflect on the deeper meanings behind the laws that govern it. We also dive deep into string theory, string theory alternatives, and the current state of physics.  Tune in to learn more about the intersection of poetry and science! Key Takeaways:  00:00 Intro 00:50 How science and poetry communicate 04:10 Judging a book by its cover 07:04 How can poetry enhance our understanding of cosmology? 08:26 Why are physicists condescending to art?  10:35 Elements and structures in Origins  15:27 String theory and string theory alternatives  22:27 String theory, extra dimensions, and dark matter 28:12 The philosophy of science and science communication  32:16 How AI is changing education and art 34:30 Whitman or Feynman?  38:40 Joseph’s personal journey with physics and poetry  40:49 Outro Additional resources:  ➡️ Learn more about Joseph Conlon: 📱 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-conlon-338aaa23/  📚 Origins: https://amzn.eu/d/2hybmbq ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating  🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1  📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list  ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/  🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast  Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's peak pollination season, and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speeds. That's why I chose Google Fi Wireless. My connections stay strong even when the hive is buzzing. Plus, unlimited plans started $35 a month. Now that's a deal that doesn't stay. Explore GoogleFi Wireless plans today. Plus taxes and government fees.

GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room.

Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton. for this day.

Einstein's equations, this is one of the most beautiful single things there has ever been. It's incredibly beautiful. And it's right and proper that we communicate this beauty and we communicate these concepts to the broader world. And there's a sense in which poetry is the highest form of language. In the same way, you look at the equations and you say these are incredibly beautiful, then the science deserves attempts to do it in poetry, attempts to do it in verse, because you're trying to aim for the most beautiful language you can.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Open the pod bay doors, help. Joseph Conlin, thank you so much for joining us all the way from the United Kingdom, from snowy Oxford, I believe. Is that right? A tiny bit of snowy is not proper snow, but... I want to get your reaction to a statement made by a countryman of yours, a late, great scientist by the name of Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac, who said, in science, one tries to tell people in such a way is to be understood by everyone

something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. What do you make of this cantankerous statement from a man who was not known for using a language very, very, you know, excessively? DRAX has kind of started in the 1920s, and this is like modernism. And people like T.S. Eliot starting it. And at some point, you know, Elliot made the statement at some point when he's writing, it says, you know, modern poetry needs to be difficult. So I think, you know, if you think about what Dirac is reacting against, I mean, it's, you know, this is modernism, this is the wasteland, this is the whole shift of poetry. You know, in the way that when physicists were discovering

quantum mechanics, all the poets were deciding to be deliberately obscure and very difficult to read. And so I think he must be reacting against that, because that is the same time quantum mechanics happens, you have the big shift to modernism in poetry. And even that, you know, Elliot was saying, yeah, poetry needs to be difficult. That's, of course, not quite. Right, right. But I think that Dirac was sort of a closeted poet, I think, in a lot of ways. As you mentioned throughout the book, there are many tie-ins to poets and scientists, and not the first of which came from my hero, the great Galileo Galilei, who was featured in Paradise Lost, I think, right? So talk about that, the ancient connections, poetry. And then there was a connection that I wasn't aware of that you make. reference to, which is to Clerk Maxwell. So what was the, you know, kind of intersection between Galileo and Milton, for example? You know, Milton in Paradise Lost, he makes a lot, there's a lot of reference to the cosmology of, to the cosmology of the time. There was, this certainly was a time, you know,

we used to be natural philosophers. We all used to be kind of broader scholars and this idea that you had your little narrow discipline that you would go into and, you know, you'd only work on that. And even like, so later in the 18th century, like Erasmus Star, you know, the people who wrote, who were exploring, and they kind of wrote about stuff in verse. And of course, classically, you've got necretius, which is, you know, when everyone wrote in versus. So, you know, it goes back a long way and there's no, yeah, there are no artificial divisions between, there should not be artificial divisions between different, different kind of branches of knowledge or, you know, different ways of scholarly activity. Yeah, before we look at the book cover and

title and so forth, tell me about the connection between James Clerk Maxwell in poetry. I wasn't aware of that. Yeah, he just wrote, I mean, I think it was this, I think there was a much, richer kind of verse culture that time. You know, in Victorian, you know, the education of Victorian England was in, you know, would have been a training in classics and people would have learned to recite English verse. So there was a much broader just verse culture, like people would just know loads of verse by heart, and they're just, everyone did that. And so the idea of kind of writing social verse, or just, you know, writing stuff just for fun, it was as much kind of in the, the fact that Maxwell would just, it wasn't like that he's, I think, I think

the way it's not that he's some, who one who's kind of completely away from his own. culture. He's in his own culture. This is a culture where people know verse by heart. They just write it for fun. You know, you all, so he would have written it kind of just as a zonber's naturally, and he obviously highly intelligent. So he kind of writes not brilliantly, but it's kind of not terrible either. Yeah, I was just looking at Apple, put some of his poems on there. And, you know, it's quite, you know, striking. I think if you put it into context of a modern poet's ear, so to speak, maybe it wouldn't, it wouldn't be so resonant. But here's a poem called, A problem in dynamics.

An inextensible heavy chain hung loosely from the ceiling is drawn by a constant force which acts upon the extreme end. What is the tension at any point and what is the velocity of the chain? I don't know. I mean, that sounds like a homework problem, or a qualifying exam problem. Not something for the ages. But let's turn to what you're never supposed to do, Joe, which is to judge a book by its cover. So I'd like you to explain the origin of the title of the cover of the book. and the artwork and as well, the subtitle, the Cosmos Inverse.

So I should also say, because that's a proof version, I ought to just give you the, you know, the, so this is the color scheme. So in terms of the artwork, so I think on the, it's more obvious that you've got kind of the black of the night sky and the little things which are sort of, you know, the stars. I mean, the reason it's been white. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsor jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen.

helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So every single proof edition that one will do is in white. So maybe other publishers do that. So origins, the title, well, literally this is, you know, the origins. were going back right to the, you know, close to the beginning of time, to inflation, to nuclear

synthesis. And the thing that also wants to slightly hint at, as I think which is true, is that this is the, you know, this story is kind of the creation story of the modern world. I mean, this occupies a place in the popular consciousness that, you know, for example, when Milton Wright's power, you know, the story of Adam and Eve, that was the kind of the creation story of the time. And I think it's, the story of the early universe is the creation story of the modern world. It is the, you know, the story of the beginning of the universe. And so, so Orgy's partly, you know, it's getting up. The Cosmosinverse, subtitle, you thought about the universe in verse, but felt that just felt

it was two tweed. And the Cosmosinverse is exactly what it is. I mean, it's a verse account, obviously. Now, you're a particle physicist, a theoretical particle. How did you come to take on, you know, my domain, you know, the way the bread gets buttered around the Keating household is cosmology. What turned your attention to cosmology as a particle physicist? The intersections between particle physics and cosmology have been close for a long time.

If you think about something like inflation, then you have what is the inflaton? That's kind of probably a particle physics question. If you're interested in string theory, as I am, then you say, well, where is strength you've got a chance of making intersection with things you can do experiment, things you can do observation? Cosmology, I think is the most likely place. And I think generally today with the, you know, with the, if you're someone who is trying to think beyond the standard model, then cosmology is, the place to be because unfortunately the LHC did not find there are no definitive signals of anything beyond the standard model from the LHC. So cosmology is a very natural place to be.

This book is what is called interdisciplinary, you know, where it's connections between many different realms of academia and or, you know, the human mind and scholarship. How did that come to you? And how do you think poetry can actually enhance our understanding of physics, astrophysics, what we do in physics, sometimes you feel this is, we are doing some of the absolute peaks of human achievement. Some of the highest, the best things people have ever learned ever in the entire history of humanity. Einstein's equations, this is one of the most beautiful single things there has ever been. This is one of the most, you know, it's incredibly beautiful.

And, you know, and obviously, and it's right and proper that we communicate this beauty and we communicate these concepts to the broader world. And there's a sense in which poetry is the highest form of language that in the same way you look at the equations and you say these are incredibly beautiful, then the science deserves, you know, attempts to do it in poetry, attempts to do it in verse. Because as language, you know, poetry, everyone, you know, if you're trying to write, you're trying to aim for the most beautiful language you can. The subject deserves no less. Right to try. Now, it's not for me to say whether I succeed or not, but it's definitely absolutely right to try to. To try. to put for, you know, what are we think of some of the best concepts people have ever discovered and give them the best words. I agree. I mean, they share some common DNA, I would say, with one another, including, you know, parsimony, economy. You don't want superfluous terms in your equations or in your experimental results. You don't want that in language and poetry if you're going to be effective and efficient as a communicator. And so I see great resonance with it. And yet, and yet, you must really,

realize our colleagues, you know, I told you we taught a class with Ray Armandrout 10 years ago called Poetry for Physicists and I had more, you know, poets in the class than physicists, that's for sure. And it's sort of looked down upon the humanities sort of by these, you know, these otherwise brilliant individuals and scholars. That poetry, language, it's something you have to take as a prerec or, you know, as a mandatory requirement to graduate. And now we have money more. You have to take a DEI class. but what do you make of that? Why is there not only kind of a lack of feeling of utility, but actually a condescension, a, you know, looking at with disrespect of the humanities from our

fellow physicists. Certainly that wasn't the case hundreds of years ago. I think there might be two trends. So one trend I think there's as I think there's a part of the humanities that has gone in a direction which is not knowledge based, which is, yeah, there's a part which has kind of got, I think got slightly sort of corrupt, you know, going down a kind of a political thing where, you know, it's hard to, you know, if you look across to say, you know, and you say, look, these people, you know, people who have enormous knowledge of English language or English poetry, people who can, you know, translate anything into Latin or Greek, translate back, and people's, you know, you have to be a fool not to kind of look across with a great deal of admiration. But I think there is a, there has been a trend in some parts of the humanities, which is not, to become less kind of knowledge focused and more, you know,

activism or politics focus. And I think when people look across at that, they do not look across with respect. I think that's one part. And the other part is, you know, people do like their own subject. That's just, yeah, people like their own subjects and they're proud of it with their own subject and they, everyone thinks their own subjects is the best one. Right. They're biased in that way. And we'll certainly get into your research and the contributions you've made in strength theory and other forms of theoretical physics, etc. One thing I, you know, found very, you know, found very delightful because I knew the Burmages. They both were here at UC San Diego. I just missed meeting Fred Hoyle and never got to know Willie Fowler, but I know many of his students,

including George Fuller and Rocky Colb and et cetera. And they make a very significant role, play a significant role in this book. Can you talk about the elements? We are often told that we're made of star stuff. And you do mention that. That's very poetic of Carl Sagan, who is another person who was looked down upon, you know, almost for his outreach efforts and wasn't granted admission to the National Academy of Sciences, as you know, talk about the role that the elements and the structure of this book, you know, from elements to galaxies, you know, to the origin of the universe itself. Talk about that. What is the significance of those stories? Why did you choose those stories maybe and exclude other stories? So the books is, there's two long poems in the

book. So one is broadly on the origin of the chemical elements. And the, the, the, the other is on the origin of the galaxy. So the first, the origin, the elements is the story of kind of nuclear synthesis, sort of how the elements came to be. And there's kind of three main parts to that. There's the very early universe, the Hot Big Bang, which is when you get kind of hydrogen and helium, tiny bit of lithium. Then you get basically inside stars, which is the life cycle of stars, as you elements are fused up until iron. And then, I mean, and as you know, we don't quite know with the heavy elements. Basically, we know it's kind of the R process, but whether it's kind of massive supernovae or with colliding neutral stars, we don't quite know exactly what it is, but whichever,

it basically involves exploding stars. So this is one part of the origin stories of where we come from. The other long poem is galaxies, which is on the origin of structure in the universe, which, so we're not completely sure. You know, I don't know, maybe you feel more sure than I do, I still feel, I feel very sure that we think came from inflation. And inflation is certainly overwhelmingly our best, best theory of this. So this describes the theory of cosmic inflation and how this beautiful combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity, and the uncertainty principle, creates structure in the universe, which then subsequently grows into galaxies. And so why is the stories, well, these are very much original stories. And they'll, I mean,

also, you know, it takes quite a while, it takes quite a while to write these. So these were the kind of This is kind of poetry book length already, and there's two pretty coherent stories. And then I wanted to include scientists in that, which is why there's the Burbages appear, Fred Hoyle appears, Cecilia Payne appears, you know, Sue Chandra appears, to tell the stories also that it's a human story as well as a scientific story. When I look at those stories, for both cases, actually for all three cases, you know, the Big Bang, the origin of the elements, et cetera, and then inflation, there are, always seem to be sort of these two different paths that people are taking.

One, kind of the orthodox, you know, as you say, most scientists look at inflation, but not all, as the dominant kind of explanation, the Genesis event of the universe, but not your colleague across the snowy greens there, Sir Roger Penrose, many-time guest on the podcast. So two, with the Big Bang, Fred Hoyle, the Burbages, they did not adhere to the Big Bang. You talk about how they came up with the name. or Fred did as a pejorative, so to speak. You know, obviously in terms of formation of galactic structure and things like that, people have very differing viewpoint.

So how do you separate, you know, kind of the crackpots, the amateur poets, the renegades that might be right, but probably are not. How do you kind of separate them as a professional and know who you should pay, you only have so much attention to give? So how do you know that as a professional? Who do you pay attention to? Yeah, that's a hard question because that's something we'll all, doing all the time. And I guess the way I try to think of is the question is like where I have a

particular angle on something. I mean, there's no point as a scientist moving to somewhere, you know, very different and trying to do like three steps where you're both going to be against the Orthodox and you're going to be in an area you know nothing that you know nothing about. Because we all have our kind of circle of things we know extremely well, circle of things we know reasonably well, circle of things where we have a good sense of the people. And so I think to me, the thing of going where you go slightly, you know, the areas you kind of know, you kind of know best where you can go unorthodox or who to try to trust. I think it's dangerous if you step, you know, if you go completely outside your,

the areas where you've got real proper, real expertise and feeling, and then start off being unorthodox. Because I think that's like an epsilon squared thing, and that's almost certainly going to be a disaster. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals, because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition.

back. In your domain of high energy particle physics, et cetera, there are great controversies and a great number of detractors from string theory. Some say it's not only wrong, but it's dangerous as actually harmful to society or at least to our profession. Comment on that. And how do you listen to the Stephen Wolframs or the, you know, the Garrett Leesies or I'm trying to think of some Julian Barboor?

How do you know in that realm, which is your realm of expertise, how much attention do you pay to alternatives? Are you familiar with Stephen Wolfram's physics project and the hypergraph theory? Is that something that you pay attention to? And if not, what would it take to get your, to pay attention to it? I mean, I think it's generally the more people that actually know about string theory at technical level, the less skeptical that they become of it. And this comes to the reason why string theory is so successful, is that it's not that a lot of people are saying. sitting around trying to solve quantum gravity and there's some by bun fight about quantum gravity is that string theory is successful because, you know, like people who worked on mathematics,

people who are interested in mathematics, people who are interested in say questions in algebra, in algebraic geometry. It wasn't kind of, you know, string theory could do things for them. It could solve their problems for them. It could solve problems they were interested in. The same is true with quantum field theory. People who are quantum field theorists, they were not strength theorists. They were quantum field theorists. They're interested in solving quantum field theory at strong coupling. String theory gave them techniques and told them, you know, here are ways you can solve quantum field theory at strong coupling, which is what they're actually interested in, and you can get results for quantum field theory at strong coupling. So I mean, I think there's this

general expression that you can buy from people in your own language, but you have to sell to them in their language. And I think this is what's happened, basically. I mean, string theory sold to lots of people because it could solve the problems they were interested in, not because it got, you know, all these people saying, well, let's go and think about quantum gravity. What do you say to those people who, you know, upon spotting your famous statement in Chapter 7 of Y string theory published by CRC Press, chapter is the shortest chapter and known popular physics books, direct experimental evidence for string theory, and the whole chapter consists of a single statement. There is no direct experimental evidence for string theory.

You've become a meme. I think you've even been retweeted by Elon Musk. I actually want to take issue with that because I had on a guest, who you surely know, Kamran Vafa. But I had a conversation with Kamran, you know, four years ago or so. And I said that there aren't many predictions, you know, kind of echoing what I learned from you and other colleagues of yours. And the question I posed to him is, you know, how do you operate in a regime where you have no direct, not only experimental evidence, evidence. But you also don't even have predictions, I said to him. And he said, no, Brian, you're

wrong. The string theory actually does make predictions, predictions about black holes, according to Stephen Hawking, Beck and St. And Hawking in particular. But he said, now I want to give you an example, Brian, where we can make predictions right now from string theory, which have been experimentally verified, Joe. So you're ready? Now, these predictions are rather, in a sense, I would not say a precise, but it's still a prediction. I'll give you an example, he said to me. You take the electron. It has a mass. And if you compute the mass of the electron in the fundamental units of physics, which is plank mass, it's a very tiny mass, something of the order 10 to the minus 23.

So if you say, great, do we have any predictions that the electron mass should be this small without knowing there is an electron, just knowing that there is electric charge? And by knowing that there is dark energy in the universe, you find a bound on the electron mass. You find that the electron mass should be bounded by 0.1 plank mass and 10 to the minus 31 on the lower edge. So he's giving us 30 orders of magnitude. What do you make of that? He's saying the string theory, given dark energy's existence, predicts the value of the electrons mass. It's not a prediction because the electron mass was measured by JJ Thompson back in 1897. So anything wishes of the nature of this is something we actually know about the universe already.

That is not a prediction. Because that's not the goods you sell to experiment in the end. It's a retradiction. But let's say you knew that dark energy existed and electrons existed. But you didn't know their mass? I mean, would this even count? Or if I tell you, the neutrino or some super symmetric partner, it's going to have some mass with 30 orders of variation, would you consider that to be a prediction, even if it comes true? I think if you predict something that is that might, you know, so there's two things. First of all, you need to, the question is, is this an absolutely 100% nailed on prediction of theory, as opposed to a prediction of a, you know, some model model you have? That's one question. And even if that is the case, well, I think generally,

if you're predicting that something is going to be within about 30, you know, if you're about possibly going to measure something and it can only be measured in kind of here, and you say what it's going to be like here, it's within 30 degrees of magnitude. I'm not sure many people will be impressed by such a prediction. From my perspective, it's a, it's sort of maybe just in there to count on a technicality of passing some paparian notion of what constitutes science, right? So if there's never any possibility of getting experimental evidence, If you knew there was a no-go theorem that said, we'll never get evidence, or God tells you, we'll never get evidence.

I've talked to other leading proponents, like Michi Okaku, who says, of course, you know, string theory can make predictions, but you have to tell me which of the 10 to the 500 vacuum states of the universe is true. And he'll say, well, that's exactly like choosing a gauge theory. What do you make of those sort of highly technical, but nevertheless, you know, quasi-quiz legitimate attempts to make string theory comport with Popper? The way I kind of thing, which is interesting, is, you know, there's all these things where you can kind of do measurement. So what I think string theory is very good at is suggesting kind of ideas that, you know, say these are things, these are things you could look for. We've got this kind of where technology is and you've got the kind of per number of stuff that is kind of kind of kind of around that. Forget kind of plank scale accelerators. We're not getting plank scale accelerators in, but the per number of stuff around that.

And then defining what are the kind of interesting things you can look for. because as more sense of a philosopher said, you know, all data is theory-laden. This is extremely true in cosmology, you know, the whole thing of how you interpret the C&D, C&B, what you should look for, what you should measure in the C&B, how you should interpret the C&B, is a completely, it's very much a theory-laden thing. And so it's saying, you know, what are the kind of things you should look for? So, for example, axiens are one of these things that are highly motivated in string theory. If we see an axiom, it is not proof of string theory.

You can have axions in beyond the standard model things. but it gives you one of these that gives you lots of ideas about how you should look for axiens, how you can look for axiens. And as you know, the search for axiens is one of the most active areas in experimental particle physics. And in cosmology, it's one of our top quarries for the Simon's Observatory, the Simon's Array. And there have even been claimed hints of detections of what's called cosmic biorefringence, which would be a consequence of an axon. And there's many different forms thereof.

So then, you know, turning to sort of one of the more, I would say, opulent or, you know, grandiose aspects of string theory, extra dimensions. Can you explain how you envision extra dimensions playing a role in string theory and especially with regard to cosmological phenomena? In other words, do we need extra dimensions? I mean, certainly we need them to instantiate string theory. But what role does the specific number of dimensions, for example, play? Is that something that's observable within a concierge? cosmological context. So I think the most interesting thing from a cosmologist's point of view, most interesting about extra dimensions is that the things like the size and shape of the extra dimensions, when you look at them from the perspective of four dimensions, these effectively correspond to scalar fields called moduli. And this is one of these generic expectations, I mean, if you want to say prediction, you can, but generic expectations of strength theory that you should have scalar fields with whose interactions are suppressed by gravitationally strength interactions. So these are really interesting various ways. They're very interesting in the early universe because if they exist,

you know, this normal picture where you've got a radiation dominated hot, big bang, that kind of lasts from inflation, you know, all the way, you know, through to nucleus synthesis. This basically almost never happens in a string model. And the reason is if you have a scaler and it's gravitationally coupled, it takes a long, long time to decay, it comes to dominate and you have these earlier periods of matter domination. So, you know, in this kind of first half of the universe lasting about 30 orders of magnitude in time between inflation and nucleus synthesis, about which we know essentially nothing, observationally.

String theory, you know, this is one of these things, such scalar fields, gravitationing gives a strong reason to modify the equation of state from, for example, just the radiation domination through that period. And such scalar fields can also, because if, for example, canation, which is something I'm sure you've kind of studied at some point as a cosmologist, this is something which only really makes sense in a kind of a UV complete, in a plant complete theory, because in something like, nation, fields move a plankian distance in field space every Hubble time. And moving transplanckian

distances in field space is only something you can do in a controlled way inside something like string theory. So these are kind of where I think extra dimensions matter because they give you scalar fields, that they give you the modulized scalar fields. And the modular scale of fields can modify the equation of state in the universe in this period between inflation and Big Bang and give you lots of interesting stuff that you can go and potentially look for. And I'm not too bothered as to whether you say this is like a prediction of string theory or whether it's just something interesting you can look for in the universe because I'm a physicist and my goal is to find out new and interesting stuff about the universe, not get hung up in some, you know,

discussion about whether or not this is a prediction of string theory or not. What about dark matter? I've heard, you know, comments and proposals ranging from Stephen Wolfram, who told me recently that he envisions dark matter as sort of a flow of heat, you know, throughout the universe. What does string theory offer regarding dark matter and how does your research contribute to the ongoing discourse about its nature? I think so, as you know, I mean, the thing we know about, the two things we know, there are two very solid things we know about dark matter. It's dark and that is matter. Yeah, it doesn't interact with self and it just, and it behaves like light, like dust. So this means

there, as you know, there are a lot of candidates for dark matter. And I don't think string theory particularly helps you here. I mean, axions are one very good candidate. You know, axions do come up in string theory. You can have, you know, there are lots of other candidates for matter. There's nothing particular about string theory which says that any one of these should be the dark matter. I don't think string theory adds anything extra particularly to the question of what is, what is dark matter? You know, one thing that I think you've done research in are, you know, things regarding topology and so forth. Talk about what, you know, your research that you're currently working on, say, has to do with either topology or moduli, and if you

could explain those also for the, for the audience's benefit, the core. nature of your research. So these moduli are the kind of, it's like, even as opposed extra dimensions are true parts of nature, with the kind of experimental apparatus we have, we cannot actually distinguish them. Now, there can be stuff on small scales that, you know, if you've only got big things, you can't think. So one thing I like to, an image I want to give here is imagine trying to kind of knit wearing

boxing gloves. You can't do it. Yeah. It involves fine detail, small scale structure. And if you're wearing boxing gloves, you know, you just cannot access stuff at a very tiny, tiny level of detail. So this is a bit like the, this is an example like, you know, this is like, even things like the LHC are the boxing gloves and extra dimensions are the other kind of knitting. You just can't, can't access it. Is there any legacy of it?

You can't see all the structure, but you have some, some broad structure. So moduli, what they are. They're kind of particles, they'll be particles. And these particles are the kind of legacies, if you like, of the extra dimensions, the legacies that we have got a chance of being able to detect or being able to. to measure. And moduli, their existence is often, not always, but it's often tied to the topology of the extra dimensions and the more topologically complicated the extra dimensions are than the more kind of moduli. And you might imagine it's that topology is something that survives when nothing else does. So you can kind of sense topology in some sense, even though you can't really

see all the microstructure. So what my research is kind of on is these kind of legacies of extra dimensions and how you would detect their effects on physics you can. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history.

Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava. The com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro.

Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Another thing that's, you know, sort of, I think, quite pertinent is how perhaps you think your research and string theory in general fits in terms of maybe the philosophy of science, which is adjacent to things like humanities, poetry, literature, et cetera. And how you view yourself as a communicator, not just as a, you know, practicing scientist of the highest caliber. What do you see as the obligation of the public scientist, if any? I mean, a lot of the people I've spoken to say we don't have an obligation, but I think

Fred Hoyle and maybe you and I might disagree. So what do you think is the obligation in the realm of popularizing and or inculcating the notion of what we do as researchers into the popular zeitgeist? So the biggest obligation is truth towards the public. I mean, sometimes people, this takes around the chapter 7 of my book, I mean, sometimes people say to me, you shouldn't have written that because it's a big. turns people kind of anti-string theory. But I mean, I say, you know, the most important thing we owe the public is truth, is to be completely accurate about our subject. And, you know, to be say, this is

precise. So, I mean, part of the book, if you've seen the book, the book is very much a case that string theory is the best theory we have. And it's an extraordinarily rich, an extraordinarily deep intellectual lecture. And I say that because I think it's true, not because I'm doing boostivism from my own subject. But part of that, it's completely honest. And we should also say, We do not have any direct experimental evidence that string theory is a true fundamental theory of nature. So in terms of communication, I think the thing we are, so the thing we most owe the public is truth. To be completely honest about the subject. And then clarity, I think, you know, so sometimes with humanity, you know, there's this, you know, for example, poetry.

There's a lot of people who translate poetry, you know, like the classical epics, you know, like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Inead, the Aenea, these have been translated into many, many different languages. Because you have these idea that this, you know, not, almost no one can read them in their original. and it's part of the kind of the common heritage of humanity that these seems to be translated to a wide audience. And to this I see very much this is what we do as communicators. I mean, the language of our subject is mathematics. You can't sort of the mathematics of general relativity, for example, you know, people don't know unless they've spent several years at university studying this. But this is absolutely part of the common heritage of humanity. And it's right that we translate this into the vernacular, which is, which is English, and we tell people about this, because these are great and beautiful ideas, and people deserve to be told them.

What do you say to people like, you know, my friend Sabina Hossenfelders, says, no, you know, you should be in the lab doing what laboratory, you know, scientists do, or Joe, you should be at the chalkboard doing what a proper theorist should be doing. And, you know, we don't pay you to do that. We pay you to do research. And there are very few people that can do what you do, and there are many people that can do what Neil deGrasse Tyson does. So how would you react to somebody is a claim like that?

That's not true. I think that's we're not. I mean, as scientists, you know, you will know, we are also paid to sit on committees. We'll also pay to help run physics departments. There's a whole lot of stuff we do. We would pay to teach undergraduates. There's a whole lot of stuff which is part of our job. You know, the mission of my university, the University of Oxford, teaching, research, dissemination. And I think it's also, it's also true. I mean, as you move through your career, you, there's always the question you're asking of, what are my best at? How can I, you know, I've got a career for you, 40 years, 50 years, something like that. how do I optimize my contributions to the subject? And this varies with your different points in your career.

I mean, there are times when you could just focus kind of entirely on yourself, what you should be doing is learning as much to the subject, you know, traveling around the world, giving talks. There are times that it's really important you. We teach undergraduates. It's important that the department, physics departments run. That requires, as you know, we kind of require the administration, which isn't always the most exciting thing in the world. And so I think as you, as you move through your career, there are the balance between different things changes. Sometimes subjects are particularly exciting and it's, you know, everyone goes filling on research.

But yeah, as you balance, you know, there's broad obligations to the many parts of the subject. And the balance shifts and varies and fluctuates up and down through different parts of them throughout a career. And another thing, you know, that's, I'd like to talk to you about, you know, is the nature of our, of our profession, of being university professors. And, you know, if I am correct, Oxford has basically been around for almost a thousand years. And it is the oldest English language-speaking university in the world.

I don't think they spoke, you know, the English that you and I are speaking, even though we're, as it said, divided by a common language. What do you make of our profession in the future with rise of tools like AI? Not as researchers, which I think there is some promise, but as professors. You're going to say jobs that are absolutely not going to go out with AI, for example, working in a bar as well. Why is that? Because it's the human, the human contact. And this I think is not just not going to go away. I mean, you know, as I, you know, we talk to students. We teach our students in Oxford particular, you know, we have a, we kind of, we have this tutorial system. We teach them in small groups of two. We see them over, over several years. We know our students very well.

I think the human aspect is never, is always going to be in demand. And humans inspire humans. People get inspired because of people they know. They also learn to be scientists from people they know. I think this aspect, you know, this is going to be around. Maybe if there are humanoid robots, we'll all go on. And what about on the other side, poetry? I've played around a lot with, you know, generating poems and generating, you know, songs,

which are not too dissimilar from poetry. So what do you make of that? the possibility for AI poets to kind of subsume not only physics Nobel prizes, but possibly literature Nobel prizes in the near future. Certainly not yet. I mean, you know, if you look at what I say chat, GTP produces in terms of poetry, it's really not very good at the moment. The future will bring what the future will bring. I mean, at the moment, you know, these things are sort of almost like things which have memorized the internet. So they could reproduce a lot of stuff, but, you know, the change, the adverse derivative has been, has been rapid.

I don't know. Will they plateau? Will they end up really being able to produce things that people say is really first-class and original first-class literature, not something that they've just kind of found somewhere on the internet? Yeah, who knows? Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot.

It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill, four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199. And entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th, U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details.

Speaking with Jan Lacoon tomorrow on the podcast, and he's an AI maximalist at Meta and sure that AI isn't a problem. He calls it as sophisticated as a cat, but only a, as a cat. I think some cats are quite, quite impressive, especially the greater cats that are, you know, plying the Serengeti. Okay, so final questions that I have for you. I want to ask you, what kind of man are you, Joseph? Are you a wit man or a fine man? And let me just read to you two different poems. And I want to get your reaction to them. First one is by Walt Whitman. And it's called When I heard the learned astronomer. When I heard the learned astronomer, when the proofs

the figures were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts and the diagrams to add and divide and measure them, when I sitting heard the astronomer when he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, how soon unaccountable I became sick and tired, until rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself in the mystical moist night air, and from time to time looked up in perfect silence at the stars. So first of all, react to that as a poem. What do you make of it? One of these things that frustrates me about a lot of poets writing about science is that the structure of this is it sort of starts with it picks up on starts. It starts with the kind of science. But then it uses the science as what it does.

It doesn't properly engage with it. It uses it as something that you then twist off onto emotional response with the slight thing that really. But then actually what is actually kind of superior, which is kind of suggest, you know, is the emotional response of getting out of the lecture theater where the actual details of all this stuff is happening. and just going up and kind of romantic in the kind of essentially semi kind of American romantic kind of just stare at the the skies. So obviously it's kind of a it works. It's a famous poem and it's a famous poem because it works and it speaks to kind of a certain kind of emotional reaction. But it's a common kind of thing on a lot of poets writing about science, which is they kind of pick science as a topic to then talk about the superiority of what is essentially an inside the heart emotional reaction. And then I want to read you the kind of response poem, which I believe you're also probably familiar with, by Richard Feynman. It's not really a poem, it's a verse, perhaps essay.

And Feynman said, poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars, mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and I feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination, stuck on this little carous. cell, my little eye can perceive and catch one million-year-old light, a vast pattern, of which I am a part. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little bit about it. Far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of

Jupiter, if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent. So what do you think of this? As a poem, as a kind of, you know, as in craft of writing, as in, you know, the craft of writing, Whitman is obviously better, as much better at the craft of right. My sensibilities are all refinement in terms of streaming, but I mean, that in terms of kind of craft of writing, Whitman is obviously better. But I mean, I completely share the sensibilities of Feynman on this, that you are, you know, as I've said, I mean, you have something like these are Einstein's going to these are some of the most beautiful things of all of humanity. And you should not write at them, you need to write, treat them in a slant fashion. You can engage them as they are and you should present them as what they are, which is some of the most beautiful things that exist. Rather than, so Whitman engages in a slant fashion and Feynman engages directly. And obviously Whitman writes better than Feynman does. But my sensibilities are all with Feynman. terms of the actual thought. Right. I understand. Okay. Finally, I want to ask you, how is your personal journey as a, as a physicist,

and maybe as a poet, been influenced by your perspective on the universe and our place within it, including the research that you have uniquely done? The poetry starts a long time ago. The poetry kind of starts when I was a child that I learned poetry as my heart as a child. My kind of parents encouraged it. I enjoyed it. And I sort of, it wasn't, you know, it was just something like, you know, it was something I enjoyed and then you kind of, if you learn stuff by heart, it lives with you and you kind of turn you turn it over even when you're not thinking about it. You know, obviously then as a, at some point, you know, when you get your, you're kind of your late years, even when you're committing to

professionals, there was this period. I was just went completely, I thought about nothing else pretty much, you know, seriously that science and physics for like, you know, 10 or 15 years starting at, sort of starting at, kind of 18. And then, but all the kind of, the literary side of me was all there in the background. And then so then I kind of started wanting to write about physics and that was my foot, you know, with Y-string theory. And then I sort of turning to kind of trying to write poetry, just for fun originally, you know, about sort of seven, eight years ago or something. And then I developed this kind of inner conviction that there's so much poetry about, you know, love and death and parents and all that things. But there's very little on kind of physics. And I'm a physicist.

And the physics deserves, you know, so I started writing something on physics and it kind of which had 10 to be 50 or 100 lines. I thought, well, then I'll try it, but then it grew, and it grew. And as I, you know, I just, then I had to do that's conviction that, you know, as I've said, this is the creation story of the modern world. And it deserves a verse treatment. I mean, and the only person who can write such a verse treatment has to be someone who is completely trained as a physicist who speaks these languages of mathematics as a fluently as a native speaker. And that I was as as less unqualified as anyone to try. I mean, you know, you can't do something unless you just. I was actually going to give this a go and see and try and try and write this. And so slowly, this book over kind of a period about four or five years was written and now it's finished and what that is done and now it's published. And it makes a wonderful contribution to, you know, an otherwise very nonfiction heavy kind of framework that science popularization has kind of undergone. And I enjoy it and I've contributed to it as well.

but it's nice to have a very distinct and perhaps much-needed break from pure nonfiction to actually learn and be delighted by. So Joseph Conlin is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oxford and a fellow of new college. His research spans particle physics, string theory, cosmology, and astrophysics. He's the author of Y string theory, which was a physics world book of the year in 2016, and he's the author of over 70 publications. Joseph, thank you so much for joining us all the way from the UK. It's been a long time. Congratulations on the book. And I do hope we get to meet in person and maybe we'll do a poetry slam together. That would be great. Security program on spreadsheets, new regulations piling up, and audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place and cuts audit prep by 82%.

Less manual work, clear visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance, or it, calm clients. Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to VANTA.com slash calm. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. And right now, you can save $20 on your first delivery or pickup order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone.