Sean Carroll

What are the ways that we could become convinced that we're not ever going to find a simple theory of everything?

That's another way to think about it.

that are, you know, maybe we get evidence that we live in a simulation or that the laws of physics are different from place to place and time to time.

And so even if we get them figured out here, we won't know them some other way.

But again, what's amazing to me is

is how rock solid and reliable the laws of physics are.

Like, we're able to extrapolate them way past the environments in which we invent them, and they still work.

I just got to put one example on the table, which is Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

This is my favorite example of exactly this.

You know, a bunch of scientists, mostly in the 20th century,

Figured out the rules of nuclear physics, the rules of gravity, the rules of cosmology.

And they realized the universe is 14 billion years old.

And they extrapolate these rules back to when the universe was one minute old.

And they make a prediction for how much hydrogen and helium they should be.

And they got it right.

Like, what in the world?

That's the impressive thing to me.

Like, we can figure this stuff out.

The standards were lower back then, Chuck.

It was a very different time.