Robert Krulwich

You're helping me.

I don't know what you're going to do.

All right.

We'll take it to the next step.

Okay.

All right, so... Well, you know we argue.

That's the fun thing we do.

Sure.

But unlike him, my position has always been that it's going to be very hard to answer all the puzzles in the universe.

And frankly, it's not a bad thing if some mysteries remain mysterious.

That's my view.

But because Brian's so smart, when I tell him, how do you know this, whatever, he always wins the arguments.

But...

A few months ago, this is the thing that got this whole thing started.

I was reading Harper's Magazine, and I found an article written by another physicist and a novelist, Alan Lightman.

And I thought, oh boy, this is going to drive Brian bats.

Because Alan says, there is a group of physicists, and Brian happens to be one of them, who've embraced a very exciting idea with an unfortunate effect.

If this idea turns out to be true, Alan writes, it will then be impossible for physicists to know everything.

Which I thought, ah, excellent.

What is the idea?