Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - Jayant Narlikar - Giant of Cosmology! (#114)

Episode Date: February 6, 2021

Besides scientific papers and books and popular science literature, Narlikar has written science fiction, novels, and short stories in English, Hindi, and Marathi: Facts and Speculations in Cosmology, with G. Burbidge, Current Issues in Cosmology, 2006 A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a Static Universe through the Big Bang towards Reality, 2005 Fred Hoyle's Universe, 2003 Scientific Edge: The Indian Scientist from Vedic to Modern Times, 2003 An Introduction to Cosmology, 2002 A Different Approach to Cosmology, with G. Burbidge and Fred Hoyle Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei: An Introduction, 1999 From Black Clouds to Black Holes, 1996 From Black Clouds to Black Holes (Third Edition), 2012 Seven Wonders of the Cosmos, 1995 Philosophy of Science: Perspectives from Natural and Social Sciences, 1992 The extragalactic universe: an alternative view, with Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Nature 346:807–812, 30 August 1990 Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating And please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishly from magic. Very good. Well, it's nice to have you here. I don't know if you remember me, but I study the cosmic microwave background radiation. And today we're going to talk a lot about the early history of cosmology, in particular Giants' work in his books. I have two of his books here, which I referenced in my book, losing the Nobel Prize. This one, current issues in cosmology. And this one, facts and speculations in cosmology. And the first thing I want to begin with is, if Giant, if you can explain how you first met Jeffrey Burbage, my late colleague at UC San Diego. How did you first meet Jeff Burbage?

How you met Jeffrey Burbage. What happened was, I had. I had been a student of Fred Hoyle in Cambridge. And I used to hear about him from Fred. And then one day he turned up in Cambridge. Both he and Margaret. And there was a great deal of excitement as if some heroes have come.

The name had preceded them. So a number of students were waiting to talk to him. And he came and then we had an informal talk and then he disappeared. Then I saw him only when I went to San Diego. That was a little later. And how did you meet Fred Hoyle? Oh, how did I meet Fred Hoyle? He was your advisor.

After I finished my, what they call the tripos examination, the final degree examination before entering as a research student, then I did fairly well. So I was given the first choice to whom I could go. For first preference. So I went to Fred and Fred was told that there will be three people coming one after the other. So he gave me 10 o'clock time in the morning. The second one came at one hour later and the third one another hour later. So that was like John Faulkner was one of them.

And when I came to see him, I found that he was very informal. And he mentioned a few topics for research, whatever I would like to pick up. And I said they're fine, but why don't you give me steady-state theory to work on? So he said that there are certainly many interesting problems in steady-state theory, but I do not want to keep my student in a controversial position. So I want to give him a topic which is relatively, straightforward. That is why he was not giving so I said okay, said okay I took one of the other

problems he had given and it so happened that within a few months I solved it. So it could not last me for three years you know for graduate thing so and in the meantime Ryle Martin Ryle came up with his source counts. And Fred was in a way challenged that the source count was inconsistent with his cosmology. So he asked me to come and work with him to see whether we can salvage the cosmology by some trick. So we said

We let us look at it in the following way and we tried a new method and it seemed to work so he said you go and you will talk on this at the Royal Astronomical Society so I said why should I talk

you are the leader so he said no but at that day I am supposed to lecture somewhere else. So somebody has to reply to rise. So I want you to do it. So I was a bit scared to take part in a controversy as a raw research student. So finally, this did happen. I managed to convince the audience that there was a case and therefore the purpose was served. And then I, as you see, instead of being avoiding controversial topic, I was put right into in the midst of it. This was the beginning of the quasi-steady state cosmology or had he already started that campaign? Is this the beginning of quasi-steady state? I don't think so. Oh, the quasi-steady state? I don't think so.

Oh, the quasi-studity theory came much later. This was when Burbidge and oil and I, the three of us, we had got a number of times together in Royal Greenwich Observatory in the UK and in UCSD. So finally, we had suggested a cosmology which is endless, that means it has no beginning, no end, and also it had no singularity. So it was free from space-time singularity, and it produced the microwave background without any difficulty, which steady-state theory had not. been able to do. So this quasi-study state theory has had several papers on it in astrophysical journal astronomy, astrophysics and so on. And we feel that that cosmology needs to be examined under whatever latest observations are.

quasi-stead state cosmology featured a new approach that wasn't exactly static. It was evolving very slowly via the presence of a new creation field, a field that you guys called the sea field. Whose idea was the sea field? The idea was sea field. The idea of quasi-stead state state. Well, the sea field itself, the actual creation. In particular, C-field-Burdivode. C-field used in quasi-steadicide say C, letter C. Okay, this is the C field was proposed for steady-state theory.

And we got at that time a very simple solution. Now when a quasi-studdy state was to be considered, we wanted to put in more kind of what you call parameters. So it became necessary to use the same C field formulation, but we take a more general solution. And that is what we did in QSAC. And that could account for the expansion. I'm sorry, and it was an idea which one cannot really

identify the who was the one among the three. We were involved in throwing the ideas around discussing. Right. Now, you had earlier worked on what was known as the Hoyle-Narlikar theory of gravity. Was that Hoyle-narikar, was the purpose of that to provide a foundation for the QSS, for the quasi-steady state cosmology? Or was it independent of cosmology at all? Your gravitation theory with Fred, was it connected with quasi-steady-stead somehow?

Our gravitation theory was, in fact, the motivator for quasi-stead cosmology. So when I said that we wanted to generalize the earlier seafield idea, that seafield idea was generalized creation field, idea was generalized, idea was generalizing. by taking some ideas out of our gravitation field. So it's a kind of cross between these two cosmology, these two models. Ah, and Hoyle, of course, is very famous because he came up with many things,

including the Hoyle resonance and other properties, but he's perhaps most famous for making the name Big Bang. Do you think that he intended it to stick for 70 years and more? Or do you think he thought it would go away as a joke more than anything else? Did he get the idea, name Big Bang and maybe expect the name to stay or be gone? Well, Fred always addressed it as Big Bang. He didn't care who else got it or used the same world or not. But as you probably know, the Sky and Telescope magazine had run a kind of competition for an alternative name.

And they came back saying Big Bang is the best. the best. Yes. And they, I remember at that time, Fred was saying to me that they should have given him the prize for the best name.

Was he a person of good humor? Was he lighthearted or was he more serious? Was he lighthearted? More humor or more serious? More what? Humor. Did he have a sense of humor or was he more serious? Well, Fred had certain ideas in which he would be triggered off into a series of laughter. If he had thought of something happening there.

But there were limited topics in which he would be humorous. Otherwise, he was more a kind of serious kind. And the notion of the going back to quasi-steady-steady cosmology, the sea field, some claims have said that it was related to the later discovery of dark energy. How did you react when teams announced in the late 1990s the discovery of an accelerated, expansion of the universe. Can you send dark energy? What do you think? Well, when you take the quasi-stasy-state cosmology,

then the need for dark matter or dark energy became different in the following compared to Big Bang. The following reason, for example, in the Big Bang, Big Bang cosmology, if you take the early universe when the deuterium was found. So at that time, how much deuterium you can make depends on what is the maximum density of baryonic matter. If the baryonic matter exceeded a certain limit, no deuterium will. be formed. So Big Bang needed to exceed that density but they did not want it to be barionic. So they said the excess must be an ultra this what you call them without dark. It is a dark matter.

The non-barionic matter. That is why that came into strength. In the U.S. I see the dark Dark myth is there, but that is not ordinary matter. It is not the strange kind of non-barionic dark matter. That is the main difference. And the acceleration, there was acceleration in the QSSC as well. I wonder if you're familiar with ideas now by people like Alan Gooth. certainly you know about inflation. You've spoken about that. What challenge do you think is the most significant challenge to the Big Bang? And then I'm going to ask you, what is the most significant

challenge to the quasi-steady state cosmology? But first, let's start with the standard cosmological model that so-called Big Bang cosmology. What is the biggest flaw, in your opinion, of the Big Bang? And then I'll ask you about the quasi-steady state. What is the biggest flaw or the problem before Big Bang? Biggest flaw. Something that you don't agree with. Flaw. What is the biggest defect of Big Bang?

I think looking back, microwave background, has been the main problem on which Big Bank, Big Bang people have tried to argue that the non-Big cosmologies like QSAC or Stady, old Steadyset, they were not valid because they could not explain microwave background. Now our answer to that is the explanation. of microwave background in USAC is quite different and it comes from previous generations of stars that starlight getting into thermalization process and it

ends up as microwave radiation so the advantage with our model compared to the big bank is that in the big bank theory, they don't know what is the ultimate temperature today is. It turned out to be 2.7, but why 2.7, why not 3 or 5 or 10? That question, Burviz used to say that our gamma, he used to give different answers each time he was asked what is the temperature. So he said 5 degrees, then 10 degrees, 15 degrees. So he, the Burmese was saying that they don't have any theory. Whereas in our case, if we know how much starlight is around,

we can do a calculation and show that the temperature is about 2.8. So we are, in a sense, better than the standard cosmology. but people have not taken it very seriously. Yeah, it is true that the fluctuation of... Let me just repeat your question, because I think he has answered it in a different way. Yes. First question was, what is the most important defect of Big Bang?

Do you think this is the most important defect? problem or flaw with Big Bang? Or is there any other thing? What we feel is that both these accelerating universe idea and on microwave background these are kind of put in by hand afterwards and these people actually don't know why the acceleration is so much and so Whereas in alternative cosmology, in our QSAC, as Barbies and I had shown in one paper, which we have shown that it is possible to explain the redshift magnitude relation for distant supernovae emitter

stars galaxies and that has been explained in our theory by saying that there is a background of intergalactic dust which thermalizes and absorbs which is equivalent to a universe which is

apparently accelerating so our idea is that there is an alternative way and the Big Bang method is not very good. It has been put in by hand. Right. So that's interesting. I would have thought you might have said the singularity or perhaps the initial creation event, but you seem to say the CMB is the worst aspect of it, which is bad news for me because I study the CMB and its polarization. Now I want to ask you if you were Gamov or somebody else, what would they say is the biggest problem with the QSSC defect? What would you say the biggest problem with QSAC?

A critic, someone who's criticizing it. You see, what happens is that in the QSAC, the micro-waping, the microwave. background was not predicted but is explained afterwards. Whereas in the Big Bang, if you remember, Gamow's students, they had written a paper saying that the relic radiation should be around. And this was a prediction. So when something follows after the prediction, you tend to believe it more than something that has been explained after it has been observed. Right.

I would say quality-wise the defect is not there. It is quantity-wise. Quality-wise, one could say that people could explain

the microwave background in QSAC using thermalization of starlight and various galaxy lights. And that thermalization process is a very unusual one, but it is possible. I mean, it is observed in certain part of the galaxy. So we know that that kind of absorption is there.

So, Opponents of QSS What do the opponents of QSS point out as a defect of QSS? Well, as I said, they would say that both accelerating universe and microwave background Those are not explained by static states course is steady state. My answer is that it is explained and it is given in reputed papers.

You only should go and read it. So I wouldn't accept that criticism. Right. Yes, there's the difference between a prediction and a retradiction, and it's obviously better to have a prediction, although many theories were predicted, you know, or rather, I should say more, there have been oftentimes people have retradicted something like Einstein and the perihelion of Mercury, but they later turn out to then make new predictions. So, but do you guys, I don't remember if you predicted the acceleration, you were trying

to come up with an expansion mechanism, and that was this creation field or dust. But do you think that Hoyle, who said, once he said, and I quote this in my book in losing the Nobel Prize, I talk about, Hoyle thought that cosmologists were religious, that they believed in the Bible too much, that the universe began with Genesis. Did he mean that seriously, in your opinion, that the cosmologist of the 60s believed in the Genesis or the biblical creation story? This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin,

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Own the dream. Do you think Hale was serious when he said that many cosmologists believed in the Genesis of Bible? Was he serious or was he joking? I think he was quite serious and although he may have said it in a kind of half-joking fashion. I don't know whether you have seen a photograph of Fred Hoyle being presented to the Pope. There was an IAU meeting where this Pope was around in Italy.

So they arranged this. So when he's talking to the Pope, the Pope is holding the cross in his hand. It looks as if he's scared of this anti-god person. Like a vampire. No, I'll have to look up that picture. That would be very funny to him. Willie Fowler took that photograph. Oh, wow. Wow. Very interesting.

So the next, we're almost done with the questions, but I want to ask you about some alternative models that are different than QSSC, such as, for example, this year, Sir Roger Penrose won the Nobel Prize for his work on Blackholes, as you know, and he's been on my show very recently too, as well as many others. But Martin, sorry, going back to Roger Penrose, he has a model which also doesn't have singularities in it. What is your impression of Sir Roger's conformal cyclic cosmology?

You are referring to other theories that means not to do with steady state. Yes, cyclical but not steady. Let me remind him. When Penrose was here in Pune, he at that time he was talking about his model, which was conformal model. And that also, it was not quasi-steady state, but that also explained it was different from Big Bang. I also remember. Do you have any opinion on those? Not really, because I do know some alternative cost models. exist, which are not of the steady-state origin or quasi-staged state.

But I have not studied them in detail to see to what extent they have succeeded. I feel there should be more people studying these things. Yeah, that brings me to one of my last questions is about why is it important to have alternative models of the origin of the universe. Why is that important to have more than one? We don't have more than one theory of electromagnetism. You see, alternative model you would go for if you don't like what is existing at the moment. So there may be different reasons for different people to have offered for this modern alternatives. I would suggest that the reason has been partly the fact that Big Bang has a singular origin which is a

defect of a physical theory. And the second thing is there are many places where the observations are explained by adding extra parameters without realizing. So this also is likely reason for other cosmologists who are non-Big Bang cosmologists. for them to have chosen these alternative moves. Can I add just my? Yes, of course. I study mathematics.

Yes. And I have been observing all these people talking about cosmology and different theories. And I have come to the conclusion that there is no theory which is completely perfect and can explain all the observations. If that is the case, why not keep three, four different theories before us and keep studying them and see finally which one will fit best? Why don't we learn from the history? Like Newton's laws, I mean, we have been studying them in school for years and they are so perfect and so nice. But even they, when they could not explain the movements of Mercury perfectly, people had kept that problem alive. And when Einstein came with his theory and when that theory explained this better, it was supposed to be better.

It was an addition to Newton's theory. Maybe in different scales, different theories work more efficiently. Why don't we keep our minds open and consider different theories in case yours is not perfect? Yes, I agree, Manjali. I think people in physics feel two things. They don't like philosophy, which I don't understand why physicists don't like philosophy, but they also don't like history. They find it a distraction.

They'd rather be doing something. So most of my colleagues would rather just make more and more contributions to kind of existing work. I think it takes a lot of courage, whether or not I agree. I look at data and I look at models. I don't come up with new models. But I agree with you, Manjali. I think it is incredibly important to have many, many ideas and then see which ones can be confronted with data. And then the data, that's my job and my colleague's job with telescopes, and then we compare.

Of course, it's always nice when there's a prediction, as Giant was saying. But you're right. People don't learn from history, like you say. And I mean, it's just the extension of Newton's theory by Einstein is a very good example. You want to say something? No, I wanted to say that if you take, I want to give an example that Jeffrey Burbis, all through his life was trying to show that there is periodicity in the red ship distribution of quasars. Quasers, yeah.

And then he also talked about various other aspects of non-cosmological redshift. Now, the situation since then, that very recently, four Indians have worked on a model of statistics to do an analysis of the data more critically. And they had taken a big sample like Sloan survey and so forth for red chips. And he showed, they have shown that there is a periodicity of red chip. And mind you, this has appeared in astronomy and astrophysics, which is a red chip. which is a referee journal and which is rather conservative

in approach. So even in that the referee accepted the paper and the paper says that the ideas which Hoyle and I had proposed

in the Machian gravitation theory that it does seem to apply to these samples. So I think this issue should be kept open rather than say that it doesn't exist or it is not right.

Right. Before I turn to the end of the questions, I have some questions for Manjala that you have studied... My name is Mangala. Mangala, sorry. Mangala, right? Yes, and you studied your mathematician, and of course, you have been married for a long time,

and you guys have daughters together, but you've published many, many papers, and in particular you worked on properties of integers, et cetera, and Erdos. I wonder, did you ever, how close were you to Erdos in terms of it? What is your Erdos number? My Erdos number is two. In fact, I had, yes, he used to visit. I was working in TiFR. Tata Institute where Jayant was a professor.

But before I married Jayant, I was a research student there. Yes. And before I could complete my PhD work, I married Jayant and went off to Cambridge, setting up the house, having kids, starting to cook and keep the house. They kept me very much busy. But I took interest in everything. Luckily, when we came back to Mumbai, Jayant got a professorship in TIFR. he chose TIFR as the best place to work.

And where he was a professor in another department, I could continue with my study in mathematics again. So, after looking after the kids and doing the housework, in my spare time, I started going to my old department. My supervisor had left. I must go and open the door and come back. I'm sorry. Okay, okay.

I'll ask Giant then, my question for you. You wrote many books on science fiction in particular. What do you prefer science fiction writing or writing nonfiction books? Sorry. Okay. What do you prefer writing science fiction or writing nonfiction? Well, I have enjoyed writing science fiction novels. I have also enjoyed explaining some of these astronomical events to Lehman.

Both require different kind of approach, but they are both I found absorbing. They're very well received. I should tell you, he's a rich child. I should tell you that he has written an autobiography. He wrote it in Marathi in our local language and that won him the National Award of the literature in Delhi. And he has got it translated in English now. he translated with himself. Wow.

He has been writing very well. Now about my career again. Yes. My career was looking after the house and kids. Dan's parents were also, they moved in with us. I had to look after them also. And in my spare time, I started working in mathematics. My supervisor had left.

He had gone to Europe. But I started with the new research students again after six years they had joined. and I changed my field a little bit. From analytic geometry, I shifted to analytic number theory. And I managed to solve a problem and get a PhD. That was the advantage I had because Jayhan took a job in TIFR. Because if you're not traveling in Bombay, it is so difficult that if I had to travel for one hour to go to the place of work, I simply could not have done it.

I had hardly two hours every day. But the other stuff was very cooperative. They used to have the lectures when I had time to attend. That was nice. Oh, wow. That's very nice. But now I'm a teacher of mathematics and I'm working for school children. I have supervised the textbooks in my state and they are received well.

Oh, wow. Now some of your children, your daughters have become scientists, as well. But they didn't take after either one of you. They went into different fields of biology and chemistry, right? They are very good with basic maths. In our house, it has to be. Yes.

And the oldest one, she is a professor of biochemistry in UCSF. Oh, good. She is Gita Nalika. She has her own lab and her students are also progressing. The second one did computer science. She did PhD from Karmes. Naregimel, she is now working for Google, Giriya, that is Giriya Naliki. And none of them changed their names after marriage as normally Indian women do.

They do. Third one is Lilavati Nalika. And she decided to combine both the fields. She works in computer science, but she does applications of computer science to biology. Ah, very interesting. But they chose their fields. Yeah. But basic knowledge of mathematics, yes, they must have.

They must know that. And they probably came here to San Diego maybe to visit when Giant was here. I remember many times you guys, or at least Giant, I remember many times you were here. And I hope you'll be able to come back someday because we miss you. And you're certainly a legend in the field of cosmology. And I remember how happy Jeff would be whenever you'd come to visit. And even our assistant, Peggy McCoy, she sends regards to you as well because she worked very closely. You will visit Pune sometime and visit the institute that Jain was the director and founder of.

I would love to. I've never been to India at all. But that brings me to my final question, which is for both of you. I want you each to answer separately. What advice would you give to your younger self? And I'm going to phrase it. The name of this podcast is called Into the Impossible. It's based on Sir Arthur C. Clark.

And he said the only way to find out what's possible is to go beyond into the impossible. And I want to ask Giant first and then Mangala, I want to ask you too. What thing about life seemed very scary when you were very young, a 20-year-old person. What scared you, but then you had courage and you went into it? the impossible. So Giant, you first. You have a lot of courage. My advice to students would be, to be honest with what they like. Sometimes they are made to do research in an area in which there is a bandwagon effect that they have to do it. Otherwise, but they are not really convinced that it's correct. So you should be convinced that you are

along worthwhile part it is my see and what about you my god i think the scientists are and should be the seekers of the truth irrespective of all other things and to find the truth yeah as jane says you have to be brave you don't have to follow the line unless you are convinced but main thing is the truth stands above all of us so leave alone all the personal things and try to get what is the correct thing what is the best thing and don't be afraid of the truth i don't know whether you read the story about fred when he was in primary school the class miss the teacher asked them to go and collect a certain type of flower and she claimed that Each flower has five petals.

Clover, flower, which you always find in the grass. Yes. So you bring it and you will see it. So they brought each class, the whole class brought things like that. Now the one with Jeff brought, Fred brought was that it showed six petals. So he asked the flowers had six questions. So he asked the teacher, you said there are five. I can believe they can be four if one is fallen off.

But why, how can I have six petals? And the teacher got very annoyed with this questioning. And she walks his ear. And he went home right away. He did not want to stay in the school. school and then he complained his mother was in favor of him when she heard all the details and then it went on until the headmaster said that French can he didn't want to go into that safe school again so they said he can change the school and they will arrange that so

So this was an example of Fred not liking the conventional wisdom. And reacting to authority. He was something unusual. Yes. And he was showing evidence. Yeah, he certainly had his challenge to authority. He was not one to go along with the geese, the flock of geese that I heard you talk about before. Anyway, I thought I would only get one Dr. Narla Kar and I got two.

It's a bonus prize. Angala, thank you so much. Jaya, thank you so much. This is such a lovely treat for me. It's an honor to meet you both or to see you both. I do hope that you have a wonderful new year, healthy and happy. And I do hope that we meet and get meat someday in person, either in California or maybe in Pune. That would be wonderful for me too.

That would be nice. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Good night. Thanks for going Into the Impossible with me. Any sufficiently advanced technology

is indistinguishable from magic. If you enjoyed this episode of Into the Impossible with Professor Brian Keating, please subscribe, comment, share, and review. Watch on YouTube, listen on iTunes, Spotify, Google Player, Stitcher. We appreciate hearing from you and are always open to your suggestions for future episodes.

For more information, and to sign up for Professor Keating's mailing list, go to Brian Keating.com. Follow Professor Keating on Medium and Twitter at Dr. Brian Keating, DR. Brian Keating. For more information on the Clark Center, go to imagination.ucsd.edu. Into the Impossible is a production of the Arthur C. Clark Center for Human Imagination, at the University of California, San Diego, in the Division of Physical Sciences. Eric Vary, Director,

Ryan Keating, co-director. Produced by Brian Keating and Stuart Volko.