Dr. Brian Keating

I should say are the BICEP team's results. I've left the team as I said, but their results are still the very best by almost an order of magnitude. We hope with the Simons Observatory that I'm co-leading with colleagues at Princeton and Penn and other places that we can actually supersede them, but we haven't yet. And so what we saw I should be very clear. We didn't make a blunder.

We didn't put our thumb in front of the viewfinder. We didn't make something stupid. We mistook a signal produced by another astrophysical source as representative of this curling pattern of microwaves for which BICEP was named. That would be indicative if confirmed of the inflationary origin of the universe which by the way would be concomitant with the existence of the multiverse.

We didn't put our thumb in front of the viewfinder. We didn't make something stupid. We mistook a signal produced by another astrophysical source as representative of this curling pattern of microwaves for which BICEP was named. That would be indicative if confirmed of the inflationary origin of the universe which by the way would be concomitant with the existence of the multiverse.

We didn't put our thumb in front of the viewfinder. We didn't make something stupid. We mistook a signal produced by another astrophysical source as representative of this curling pattern of microwaves for which BICEP was named. That would be indicative if confirmed of the inflationary origin of the universe which by the way would be concomitant with the existence of the multiverse.

So the stakes are really high. That means the incentives to make sure you detect that are really high too and not get scooped as happened many, many times. My advisor was scooped. He never won the Nobel Prize. My advisor's advisor. He never won the Nobel Prize. These accidentally discovered, serendipitously discovered astronomers, Penzias and Wilson, they did win the Nobel Prize.

So the stakes are really high. That means the incentives to make sure you detect that are really high too and not get scooped as happened many, many times. My advisor was scooped. He never won the Nobel Prize. My advisor's advisor. He never won the Nobel Prize. These accidentally discovered, serendipitously discovered astronomers, Penzias and Wilson, they did win the Nobel Prize.

So the stakes are really high. That means the incentives to make sure you detect that are really high too and not get scooped as happened many, many times. My advisor was scooped. He never won the Nobel Prize. My advisor's advisor. He never won the Nobel Prize. These accidentally discovered, serendipitously discovered astronomers, Penzias and Wilson, they did win the Nobel Prize.

So there is a pressure on scientists to get there first, like Falcon Scott, Robert Scott getting to the South Pole first. There is a benefit to priority. It's just a fact of life. And science is no different. We teach undergraduates about seven or eight different experiments. All of them won the Nobel Prize at some point in physics history. It doesn't mean they're not going to win a Nobel Prize.

So there is a pressure on scientists to get there first, like Falcon Scott, Robert Scott getting to the South Pole first. There is a benefit to priority. It's just a fact of life. And science is no different. We teach undergraduates about seven or eight different experiments. All of them won the Nobel Prize at some point in physics history. It doesn't mean they're not going to win a Nobel Prize.

So there is a pressure on scientists to get there first, like Falcon Scott, Robert Scott getting to the South Pole first. There is a benefit to priority. It's just a fact of life. And science is no different. We teach undergraduates about seven or eight different experiments. All of them won the Nobel Prize at some point in physics history. It doesn't mean they're not going to win a Nobel Prize.

No. Why? Because they didn't get there first. So getting there first in sight, that's for better or for worse, is the sign of greatest accomplishments, the sine qua non of accomplishment is that that does lead to Nobel Prizes.

No. Why? Because they didn't get there first. So getting there first in sight, that's for better or for worse, is the sign of greatest accomplishments, the sine qua non of accomplishment is that that does lead to Nobel Prizes.

No. Why? Because they didn't get there first. So getting there first in sight, that's for better or for worse, is the sign of greatest accomplishments, the sine qua non of accomplishment is that that does lead to Nobel Prizes.

Yeah, I should say what we saw. What we mistook as the imprimatur of this origin spark of the universe was the humblest substance in the universe, namely dust. So when a star explodes, it produces, after its lifetime has expired, it fuses lighter elements into heavier elements. Eventually, it gets to produce iron.

Yeah, I should say what we saw. What we mistook as the imprimatur of this origin spark of the universe was the humblest substance in the universe, namely dust. So when a star explodes, it produces, after its lifetime has expired, it fuses lighter elements into heavier elements. Eventually, it gets to produce iron.

Yeah, I should say what we saw. What we mistook as the imprimatur of this origin spark of the universe was the humblest substance in the universe, namely dust. So when a star explodes, it produces, after its lifetime has expired, it fuses lighter elements into heavier elements. Eventually, it gets to produce iron.

And iron is the element for which, once it's fused together from, I think it's silicon or two nuclei before it, it produces too little energy to keep the star buoyant and expanded. And so the star immediately starts to collapse. When that collapse occurs, it blasts out into the interstellar medium that surrounds it all the byproducts, the silicon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and the iron.

And iron is the element for which, once it's fused together from, I think it's silicon or two nuclei before it, it produces too little energy to keep the star buoyant and expanded. And so the star immediately starts to collapse. When that collapse occurs, it blasts out into the interstellar medium that surrounds it all the byproducts, the silicon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and the iron.

And iron is the element for which, once it's fused together from, I think it's silicon or two nuclei before it, it produces too little energy to keep the star buoyant and expanded. And so the star immediately starts to collapse. When that collapse occurs, it blasts out into the interstellar medium that surrounds it all the byproducts, the silicon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and the iron.

And it blasted out into the universe surrounding it. And that happens enough times in our galaxy that the galaxy is actually a pretty polluted place. It's smoggy. It's dusty. It's dirty. And the dust is actually little microscopic meteorites. So on my website, BrianKeating.com, I give away – actually, I have a special link, BrianKeating.com slash Huberman.