The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss
- Episodios
- 160
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- cada mes
- Último episodio
- 2 Nov 2026
Sobre el podcast
The Origins Podcast features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world about the issues that impact all of us in the 21st century. Host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, will be joined by guests from a wide range of fields, including science, the arts, and journalism. The topics discussed on The Origins Podcast reflect the full range of the human experience - exploring science and culture in a way that seeks to entertain, educate, and inspire. lawrencekrauss.substack.com
Episodios 160
Nothing and Everything: From Antiquity to today: 5000 years of human inquiry into the Universe.
Many of the same questions that provoke our imagination about our universe today were asked by the ancients. How did the universe begin? What is it made of? etc. What is particularly interesting is how the …
Notas del episodio
Many of the same questions that provoke our imagination about our universe today were asked by the ancients. How did the universe begin? What is it made of? etc. What is particularly interesting is how the ancients addressed the question of how to get something from nothingness, and ultimately how the notion of the aether evolved. In this lecture I discuss the ancient greek philosophers’ ideas of the stuff of matter and the origin of the universe, and contrast that with our modern understanding. While our modern picture of the universe is vastly different than that of the ancients and we dispensed with the idea of an aether in the early 20th century, we have now replaced it with something even stranger, in which the dominant energy of the universe is contained in empty space. In some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And the most beautiful thing of all is that the mysteries continue...
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePhysics for Everyone, Lecture 6. The Unification of Space and Time
Everything we have discussed in these lectures so far has brought us to this, the first 20th century revolution in physics. And that is the way it should be, but it is most definitely NOT the way it is normally …
Notas del episodio
Everything we have discussed in these lectures so far has brought us to this, the first 20th century revolution in physics. And that is the way it should be, but it is most definitely NOT the way it is normally taught in physics classes.
One of my pet peeves about the teaching of physics is how Special Relativity is introduced in introductory physics, as if it is some insight from God that Einstein had. Instead of the Ten Commandments, Einstein was given a tablet that said: “The speed of light is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion to the source of the light” and everything followed from that.
No! Maxwell’s unification of electricity and magnetism taught us something fundamental about light, that it is an electromagnetic wave. From that, the equations of electromagnetism allowed Maxwell to derive the speed of light using only measurements of electricity and magnetism.
It was the brilliance of Einstein to realize that this result was inconsistent with the rest of classical physics, in particular the results of Galileo about the nature of motion.
And from there, Einstein was inevitably dragged to equations of special relativity.
And only after he followed through, did someone else, his former math teacher, Minkowski, realize that Einstein had discovered something deep about the connection between space and time, and they symmetries of nature.
That is the actual story I describe here. It is elegant and beautiful, and much more sensible than the “Einstein revelation” fable that is too often used in the teaching of physics.
I hope you enjoy this. The culmination of classical physics, and the beginning of the modern era.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science with Sabine and Lawrence | AI Dreams and Nightmares, Dark Matter Discovered? and Fake Science News.
There has been a lot of doom and gloom combined with excitement, if that is possible, about AI in the science news lately. Sabine and I tried to deconstruct the hype associated with the highly touted Open AI …
Notas del episodio
There has been a lot of doom and gloom combined with excitement, if that is possible, about AI in the science news lately. Sabine and I tried to deconstruct the hype associated with the highly touted Open AI solution of one of the Millennium Problems in Mathematics, as well as explore the real concerns and imaginary concerns associated with both the recent Open AI agent hacking of Huggy Face, and the blog post by the CEO of Anthopic arguing for a pause in AI development because of the potential for disaster—a statement endorsed by both Elon Musk and Sam Altman. As usual, things are neither as bad, nor as good as they might seem.
We also tackled two other stories of interest. A single data point might signal the discovery of particle dark matter in an underground detector! Sabine and I come at this from different perspectives—she has always been suspicious of the claimed need for dark matter, and I have not only explored and proposed a number of the prime candidates, but I also helped propose and promote the kind of technologies that led to LZ/LUX, the collaboration making the current announcement. Nevertheless both Sabine and I agree that it is premature to celebrate. And while Sabine won’t bet, I am betting that this single point will not be substantiated when more data comes in. Stay tuned.
Finally we discuss a sad development—Scientific Paper Mills. Apparently you can buy your way to a first authorship, or just an authorship, on a scientific paper that can eventually be published somewhere, even if the results might not be completely kosher. While this is a disturbing new possibility, it seems like it is just affecting science at the margins. We need to try and stamp it out, but it is not undermining the bulk of scientific research.
In any case, as they used to say on a famous TV show, after all the AI world-ending hype, happy to say: See you next time.. if there is a next time!
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeSearching for Aliens. The Wrong Way? A dialogue with John Gertz
John Gertz is a Renaissance Man. One might think that the President of Zorro Productions might be the last person to talk with about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and the last person to …
Notas del episodio
John Gertz is a Renaissance Man. One might think that the President of Zorro Productions might be the last person to talk with about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and the last person to chair SETI’s governing board. But as is clear from our discussion, and from the material in his recent book, Reinventing SETI, John has not only mastered all of the relevant technical issues, he has thought deeply about the motivation for SETI, and the likelihood of its success. Treating the issue as a businessman rather than a scientist, he has tried to anticipate what signals other civilizations might send, and what we might listen for. He also takes a realistic view of what we might actually be able to detect. The net result of our conversations is that the prospects are not good for detecting anything out there. Distant aliens are likely not broadcasting in a way we could be sensitive to. And as he points out, we should probably do the same. His great hope is that alien civilizations have instead installed probes in other solar systems, including ours. However, this possibility too, as I emphasized with him, is also rife with difficulties.
I have thought a lot about SETI since I wrote The Physics of Star Trek. I don’t think anyone has affected my thinking on the issue since then more than John. I was pessimistic before. Now I think the whole effort is probably misguided. Though, if someone other than the government is willing to pay for it, what the heck. As I often tell experimentalists. Do what you can do, no matter what us theorists say. We may be wrong.
I hope you find our discussion as informative and provocative as I did. I will be interested to hear if it changes your perspective on SETI as well.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePhysics for Everyone, Lecture 4. The Beating Heart of Modern Physics: The Dog Who Didn't Bark in the Night.
This lecture, recorded before lecture 5, which was released a month ago, actually more naturally follows it, which is why releasing it after lecture 5, while unintended, actually makes sense. In the last …
Notas del episodio
This lecture, recorded before lecture 5, which was released a month ago, actually more naturally follows it, which is why releasing it after lecture 5, while unintended, actually makes sense. In the last lecture I described the most important unification in all of physics, the unification of electricity and magnetism, a unification into electromagnetism by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century.
Because of its elegance, and its overpowering utility, the theory of electromagnetism has provided the prototype for all modern physical theories that have followed it. As I show in this lecture, the form of electromagnetism is governed by a new mathematical symmetry in nature, called gauge symmetry. It turns out the existence of this symmetry is profoundly important, and it not only governs the exact form of the theory, it turns out to govern the form of all the known forces of nature.
Before we get to gauge symmetry, I want to explore more generally what is meant by symmetry in physics, and then I want to redo elementary physics by thinking about symmetry. In my mind, the fact that basic physics is introduced without reference to the symmetries of nature is perhaps the greatest failing in the teaching of modern physics. Concepts like energy and momentum have relevance because of fundamental symmetries of space and time. The facts that energy is ‘conserved’, and momentum is ‘conserved’ in systems, which rigorously fix determine the form of Newton’s laws of motion, are often introduced as if they are dictates on high, like the ten commandments. However, once one understands that these arise from symmetries of nature, the fact that these quantities exist and are conserved, becomes immediate, as the remarkable mathematician Emmy Noether showed at the beginning of the 20th century.
Finally, as important as mathematical symmetries are in governing physical laws, it is equally striking that even if these fundamental symmetries exist in nature, they may not be manifest in particular situations. For example, gravity and electromagnetism don’t distinguish between left and right, but if I look around my room, the left side of my room looks very different than the right side. This is an example of what is called ‘broken symmetry’, one of the most subtle and impactful notions at the basis of what is now called The Standard Model of Particle Physics.
In this lecture I review all of these ideas, which are essential if we are to go beyond the physics of the 19th century to understand the physics of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Enjoy.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science with Sabine and Lawrence | Cosmic oddities, Black Hole normalities, Quantum Batteries, and remote-controlled cockroaches
Happy August! . Heading back to North America as we just concluded our Origin Project Adventure to Cyrpus and Greece, where we felt the heat, and avoided some wildfires while having some amazing positive …
Notas del episodio
Happy August! . Heading back to North America as we just concluded our Origin Project Adventure to Cyrpus and Greece, where we felt the heat, and avoided some wildfires while having some amazing positive experiences as well with an amazing group of 26 travelers. Please stay safe and try and stay cool this month.
To help distract you from the heat, I hope you will enjoy this latest conversation about new discoveries in science with Sabine Hossenfelder. As always, we try and deconstruct the facts behind the headlines, and also explore new strange corners of our universe.
This episode begins with some new observations of the Bullet Cluster of galaxies. This cluster contains two galaxies that have collided, and seems to have provided evidence for exotic dark matter that has passed through the collision unscathed. Not so, says a new analysis, which claims evidence for more dark matter in the form of black holes and other less visible normal matter. There are strong reasons to be skeptical however, as both Sabine and I agree.
Speaking of black holes, a new analysis of collisions of black holes at the terrestrial gravitational wave detectors proposes a solution to the mystery of how black holes in a so-called forbidden gap between 10-20 solar masses and more than 50 solar masses have formed. They provide evidence that some of the black holes observed in collisions have been built up from earlier collisions with other black holes. This hierarchical growth could potentially explain how very large black holes in the early universe form, though it is a long way from 50 solar masses to 1 billion solar masses!
Strange goings on at the largest scales of the universe continue to be claimed, as yet another study argues for an unexpected and unexplained cosmic spatial asymmetry. It is hard to reconcile this with the observed uniformity of the universe on the largest scales we can observe via the Cosmic Microwave Background. As a result, it is too early to get excited, even if newspaper reporters love to report on claims that fly in the face of the standard model of cosmology.
The Vera Rubin Space Observatory has started its 10 year project to monitor a huge swath of sky every night looking for things that go bump in the night. On the first night, they found a few hundred thousand possible events. With a 10 year movie of the cosmos who knows what they will discover.
Sabine introduced me to an article about Quantum Batteries. Are they going to be useful, or just another cute example of how quantum mechanics produces strange phenomena? Time will tell.
Finally, I couldn’t resist introducing a story about cockroaches with nervous system implants that allow their motion to be remote controlled by experimenters, with tiny diving suits attached that allow them to breathe underwater for extended periods. It is claimed that they may help in undersea rescue.. Wow! Maybe so… What will they think of next?
Until the next time.. enjoy!
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeSaving a Family from Afghanistan
I remember when my friend, journalist Claire Berlinski, first contacted me about a tragic situation regarding a family trapped in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. She knew that I had helped a young girl …
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I remember when my friend, journalist Claire Berlinski, first contacted me about a tragic situation regarding a family trapped in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. She knew that I had helped a young girl interested in physics escape to the US to study years earlier and hoped that I might assist in this case. If ever one imagined a family appropriate to bring to safety, this would be the one. The mother was a women’s rights lawyer before the takeover, and the husband worked for a French firm. The Taliban had broken into the Bar Association Office and found records of lawyers, who were being sought for arrest. One older son, and five young daughters in danger of being married off if they were discovered.
Their original escape plan was foiled when the airport was bombed just before their planned departure. Because Claire lives in Frances the older boy had reached out to her for help, and she sent out a call to her followers to provide financial assistance to help the family.
Claire contacted me because she knew I now lived in Canada, which has a well-established refugee program. In spite of this, for two years I was not able to find a single sponsoring agency who had a sufficiently large slot allocation to assist. Finally, after over a year, with five generous individuals who agreed to act as guarantors, Jewish Immigrant Aid Services in Toronto indicated they had the slots and would sponsor a refugee application for the family, provided we raised the necessary funds to guarantee support for family for their first year in Canada—a government requirement. After five months of fundraising, we achieved the goal, and the full application was submitted to the government of Canada.
I have always found it poetic that the organization in Canada that has been willing to help save this Muslim family is a Jewish organization. Perhaps, in the midst of all the horrible antisemitism that has blossomed in the world over the past years, this provide a useful example that religious differences need not always be a source of discord and hatred.
That was 18 months ago. In spite of having fulfilled at the requirements, the backlog of cases is such that we knew it could take up to two years for the application to be processed. In the interim the family was able to travel to Pakistan. But their visas have expired and Pakistan is now deporting Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan.
The family is in hiding in Pakistan, not able to leave their house. The girls are growing and one of them managed to learn enough English to get a prized scholarship to study online at a US university abroad, where she is studying psychology, as the law degree that she really wants is not available.
The family agreed to be interviewed for this podcast. Their images have been washed out for their protection, and their names have been changed as well. We are hoping this podcast will help spur some of you to provide support through Claire’s online site to help provide essentials for the family while they are in hiding, and that it might also help motivate some of you who might live in Canada to help us lobby the government to ensure that their case is resolved as quickly as possible.
Thanks for watching, or listening, and for any help you can provide. Here is a gofundme link to help support them. https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-five-afghan-girls-get-to-safety
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePhysics for Everyone, Lecture 5: The Unification that Changed the World
I began this lecture by saying I was daunted by what I was about to talk about. There are several reasons for this. First, I will lead you through the development of what was certainly most important …
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I began this lecture by saying I was daunted by what I was about to talk about. There are several reasons for this.
First, I will lead you through the development of what was certainly most important theoretical development in the 19th century, and what could easily be considered the most important mathematical framework in all of physics. Second, this development affected our modern picture of the universe more than almost any other. Next, this development made our modern technological society possible. And finally, it allowed a calculation that ultimately unveiled the true nature of light. A calculation we will perform together during this lecture
I am going to take you through what is often taught in a whole semester course in physics. So hold onto your hats. Take it step by step. I think the reward of understanding will be worth the effort. I hope at the end of this lecture you agree with me.
This month I will be traveling with the Origins Project and a group of 27 intrepid travelers to Cyprus and Greece. So the next Origins podcast will not air until August. I hope your July is enjoyable.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science | Cosmic Surprises, Newton Supreme, A New Collider, and Feynman Dines Out?
I think this was one of my most enjoyable dialogues in our What’s new series. Maybe Sabine and I are getting more used to each other’s cadence and interests or maybe it was the subject matter. Either way, I …
Notas del episodio
I think this was one of my most enjoyable dialogues in our What’s new series. Maybe Sabine and I are getting more used to each other’s cadence and interests or maybe it was the subject matter. Either way, I think you will find this to be a fascinating and provocative discussion of science at the forefront, and at the not-so-forefront, because that science is interesting too!
We began our discussion describing a new finding of a Giant Ring of galaxies billions of light years across in the sky. The key questions are: Is it real? And is it surprising? We both have slightly different takes on this.
Next we described a new measurement of the strength of gravity on scales from 80 to 800 million light years in distance. And guess what? Gravity falls off just like Newton predicted! This may seem like a big yawn, but one of the most popular models that claims to do away with dark matter would imply that Gravity would fall off differently on these scales. Does this new result kill that idea? Stay tuned.
Microsoft, which has cried wolf a number of times so far when it comes to something called Majorana qubits as the basis of a new viable quantum computer just published a new paper claiming they finally have it. Sabine and I discuss why we are both still skeptical, but why the effort is worth it.
Next, CERN, the large European particle physics laboratory, and the world particle physics community seem to have converged on plans for building a huge new accelerator in the current CERN site.. this time involving an underground ring 91 km in circumference, in which electrons and positrons would collide to explore the detailed properties of the Higgs particle. Is the effort worth it? Again, Sabine and I have slightly different takes on this.
Fusion power, which we have talked about in a number of earlier episodes, continues to tempt humanity with the promise of unlimited energy. Many people, myself included, have tended to argue that fusion seems to be 25 years in the future, and may always be 25 years in the future. But many new efforts are underway, so who knows. Unfortunately, a group of economists has analyzed fusion in the context of other large energy programs and have argued that even if we can achieve it, it may not be as economically viable as many claim.
Finally, one day Richard Feynman went to a Thai restaurant with his young companion Ralph Leighton, and wondered what he should order. Should it be the same old dish he loved or something new. An equation filled napkin later, and he had the answer. Fifty years later some cognitive scientists resurrected Feynman’s napkin and explained it, and argued it might have important implications in other social situations. Such is the power of science.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeAlvin Roth: Moral Economics, from Prostitution to Kidney Transplant Markets
Alvin Roth is a Nobel Prizewinning Economist whose work on designing markets has had real world impacts that may have saved thousands of lives around the world, while arousing strong emotions both for and …
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Alvin Roth is a Nobel Prizewinning Economist whose work on designing markets has had real world impacts that may have saved thousands of lives around the world, while arousing strong emotions both for and against the programs he has helped put in place. Clearly not one to shy away from controversy, he represents the best of what The Origins Project is trying to promote: applying science and reason to public policy. In short, connecting science and culture!
Roth’s new book, which is fantastic, and comes out the same day this podcast is released deals with issues that often raise the public’s ire, from legalizing prostitution, to assisted suicide, and finally to a rational market for kidney transplants. For example, everywhere there is good date, legalizing prostitution reduces not only incidents of sexually transmitted disease, but also violent sexual assaults. It may also combat illegal human trafficking. As far as kidney transplants are concerned, in the US alone, over 130,000 kidney failures occur each year, and only 20,000-30,000 transplants are performed, because of a lack of suitable kidney donors. Roth has already helped resolve one bottleneck, connecting donors with those in need, through a kidney exchange, which is actually more complicated than it may seem due to medical incompatibilities even within closely related individuals. More generally, not only could lives be saved, but as he shows, it would save considerable money if a rational system of reimbursing prospective donors could be devised.
Beyond his remarkable work tying empirical testing to theoretical ideas, as a human being, Roth is a saint. I have direct knowledge of this. On the day this podcast was recorded, we had an amazing 3 hour dialogue… one of the best I have had. Only problem was, I forgot to press record! We lost it all. With patience and grace that I never expected, Roth agreed to re-record another podcast on the same day. A friend of mine told me was a mensch. But I never expected that. I am eternally grateful, and I hope you will thoroughly enjoy, and have your perspective of the world altered by my conversation with this remarkable gentleman and scholar. Enjoy!
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science With Sabine and Lawrence | Ghost Murmers, New Wires, Cosmic Questions, And AI cures?
I’m back with my friend and colleague Sabine Hossenfelder for another episode of “What’s New in Science”. Spending time with Sabine was a nice chance to step away from my physics lecture series for a bit. I …
Notas del episodio
I’m back with my friend and colleague Sabine Hossenfelder for another episode of “What’s New in Science”. Spending time with Sabine was a nice chance to step away from my physics lecture series for a bit. I know many of you have been enjoying the lectures, so don’t worry, they’ll be back soon.
In this episode, we covered an incredibly wide range of science topics. Sabine opened with reported claim that the CIA used quantum magnetometry to find the downed pilot in Iran. The report, in the NY Post, looked fishy. We explain why it is. Then I described a new discovery in the physics of material that may solve perhaps the biggest problem in AI now: heat generation in computers. Sabine talked about a new claimed Big Bang Theory that might have some relevance to quantum gravity. Then I countered with a discussion of yet a new result that suggests the standard model of cosmology may have troubles, or that observers are wrong.
After that, Sabine introduced a paper describing a possible new way to measure gravitational waves. I think it is a fine piece of work, though it is not clear if it is practical. If it were, then the huge interferometers that are now being used could be replaced by ‘tabletop’ detectors. We will see.
Finally, I described an amazingly interesting news story that might have implications for the future of medicine. It also demonstrates what one person, with determination and wealth, can do to possibly cure their own maladies. Sid Sijbrandij, a billionaire tech CEO of Gitlab, was diagnosed with inoperable spine cancer, and launched an amazing program of diagnostics, AI data mining, and a group of scientists who developed vaccines specific to his genetic makeup. After implementing all the procedures, he has been cancer free for a year. While this is beyond the reach of people without these resources now, Sid’s story demonstrates the potential power of combining AI and genetic medicine in the future.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePhysics for Everyone, Lecture 3: Motion, from Galileo to Dark Mysteries
We usually begin the study of physics with a discussion of motion, not because it is easy, or because the modern understanding of motion began with Galileo hundreds of years ago. Rather, Galileo’s …
Notas del episodio
We usually begin the study of physics with a discussion of motion, not because it is easy, or because the modern understanding of motion began with Galileo hundreds of years ago. Rather, Galileo’s groundbreaking work provides a paradigm to understand how physics is done today. Extracting out the fundamental essence of motion from all the distractions associated with what turn out to be irrelevant complexities was a monumental intellectual leap for humankind—a leap we often take for granted.
Without the leap, for example, Newton could never have made his profound discoveries about the relationship between force and movement, nor his discovery of the Universal Law of Gravitation.
But too often we treat these remarkable achievements as something belonging in antiquity.. as if we have moved far beyond them in every way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Applying the very same ideas that Galileo and Newton developed leads us to the cusp of modern physics: the discovery of the dominant mass in the Universe, a vast invisible sea of dark matter. In this episode, we travel over 450 years of physics, from Galileo, to the threshold of our understanding of the cosmos today. Hang onto your hats.
I’m also pleased to share a quick PSA. A reminder of our 2026 Origins expedition through the Greek archipelago (July 24 to 31), with a Cyprus add-on (July 17 to 22). If you’re interested, it’s worth raising your hand early. These trips tend to fill quickly. Express interest at
https://originsproject.org/greek-adventure-2026-application/
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeKatie Herzog: The Science Behind Drinking To Get Sober
Alcoholism is a scourge on modern society. Every year, 178,000 American die from alcohol abuse, and it has been estimated that over 200 billion dollars is lost from the US economy due to alcoholism …
Notas del episodio
Alcoholism is a scourge on modern society. Every year, 178,000 American die from alcohol abuse, and it has been estimated that over 200 billion dollars is lost from the US economy due to alcoholism, includingcosts of health care, lost productivity, and costs of crime enforcement. Given this immense social cost, it is equally amazing that there is no widely accepted cure. Rather, alcoholics are told they need to abstain from taking a single drink for the rest of their lives, or they are likely to revert to their earlier states of alcohol abuse.
Katie Herzog is a journalist whose work I have enjoyed and I was happy to have a conversation with her in general. But even more so after the publication of her recent book, Drink your Way Sober. She discusses there a fascinating science-based approach that appears to provide a ‘cure’ for many alcoholics that actually allows them to drink, if they wish, in moderation, for the rest of their lives. The idea is to use an opioid blocker, in this case something called naltrexone, that basically removes the pleasure response from drinking. A naltrexone pill can be taken a few hours before drinking, and over time, with the correct behavioral management, it has been shown to be effective for many drinking in removing the craving for alcohol.
What makes Katie’s book, and our discussion, so poignant is that Katie is not just a journalist writing about alcoholism, she was an alcoholic for most of her life, and her discovery of the work of of the so-called Sinclair Method, after the scientist David Sinclair, whose original work on naltrexone in Finland changed the field, changed her life.
Her book intersperses her own experiences with the science underlying this new treatment for alcoholism, and it is thus perfect for our podcast, which connects science and culture. It also makes for a fascinating and informative conversation that I hope will help have a positive impact on treating this international blight. I hope you find it engrossing and as enjoyable to listen to as it was to produce.
And there are still berths available on our Greece and Cyprus adventure. Go to originsproject.org and explore the possibilities!
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science With Sabine and Lawrence | Fusion Dark Matter, String Theory in Biology, and Rapid Evolution
I’m back with my friend and colleague Sabine Hossenfelder for another episode of “What’s New in Science”. I think this is one of my favorite dialogues that we have had. Spending time with Sabine was a nice …
Notas del episodio
I’m back with my friend and colleague Sabine Hossenfelder for another episode of “What’s New in Science”. I think this is one of my favorite dialogues that we have had. Spending time with Sabine was a nice chance to step away from my physics lecture series for a bit. I know many of you have been enjoying the lectures, so don’t worry, they’ll be back soon.
In this episode, we covered the kind of science news I like best: ideas you can argue about and results that make you recalibrate. Sabine opened with describing a clever proposal that future fusion reactors might double as axion dark matter factories, producing a flux of very light, weakly interacting particles through neutron-lithium reactions in the shielding. That led to a discussion about what people mean by “axions,” why particle physicists tend to be more particular about the term, and why I’m always more interested in dark matter candidates that were invented to solve an actual problem, not just to fill a cosmological gap. From there we jumped to quantum mechanics at the edge of common sense, with a Vienna experiment showing interference from a cluster of thousands of atoms, and a friendly disagreement about whether “collapse” is a real physical process or just the wrong way to talk about what quantum mechanics is doing.
We also talked about AI and math, including the recent swirl of claims about machines proving famous open problems, what was hype, what was rediscovery, and what might genuinely be changing in how mathematicians search the landscape. Then we went from equations to extinction, with a fascinating new approach using space dust and helium isotopes to argue that life may have started rebounding after the Chicxulub impact far faster than people had assumed. Sabine brought a surprising example of string theory mathematics finding a practical use in modeling biological networks, and we ended with biology proper in two very different moods: a sobering study in mice suggesting lung tumors can hijack vagus nerve signaling to suppress local immune responses, and then a lighter result about dogs learning words from overheard human conversation at roughly toddler level. My dog Levi, who many of you have seen on the podcast, was asleep next to me while we talked about it, which felt like the right way to end.
As always, thank you for your continued support, and I hope the changing of seasons brings you good time with friends and family.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePhysics for Everyone, Lecture 2: The Gestalt of Physics, Tools for Seeing
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C. Clarke put it. In that spirit, the way we get closest to “magic” in physics is not by memorizing more facts or equations, but …
Notas del episodio
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as Arthur C. Clarke put it. In that spirit, the way we get closest to “magic” in physics is not by memorizing more facts or equations, but by learning a few mental tools that help us see through the illusion of complexity by extracting the wheat from the chaff. They are all simple at heart, but nevertheless quite powerful, and they form the core of what I call the Gestalt of Physics—the worldview that governs how physicists approach nature. And some of them can actually seem like magic to the uninitiated!
I’m also pleased to share a quick PSA. We’re organizing our next Origins travel adventure: a sailing expedition through the Greek archipelago (July 24 to 31) with a possible Cyprus add-on (July 18 to 23). If you’re interested, it’s worth raising your hand early. These trips tend to fill quickly. Express interest at http://originsproject.org/greece-2026
In Lecture 1, I used powers of ten as an intellectual zoom lens, a way to escape the trap of human scale. Lecture 2 steps back and asks a more fundamental question: how do physicists consistently make progress when the world looks hopelessly complicated?
This lecture focuses on the fundamental toolkit for seeing. We will use these tools throughout the series, because they are the difference between being dazzled by nature and being able to interrogate it, and ultimately understand it.
First, order of magnitude thinking, the art of using powers of ten and rough estimates. It is how you keep your intuition tethered to reality, and how you avoid being bullied by big numbers dressed up with false precision.
Second, approximation, which is where I introduce my super cow. It is not only a spherical cow. It’s better. My super cow has exactly the features we need for the question at hand, no more, no less, and it politely agrees to ignore everything irrelevant. I introduce it with a joke, but it is also the core of how we turn messy reality into something we can actually calculate without lying to ourselves.
Third, dimensional analysis, one of the great bargains in science. The fact that there are essentially only 3 fundamental ‘dimensional’ quantities describing nature—Length, Time, and Mass—means that all physical quantities can be related to other physical quantities through a small set of relations. Keeping track of dimensions allows us to often guess what the relations are, without knowing any details of specific physical situations. It seems like magic. By keeping track of the dimensions underlying quantities, you can often infer the form of an answer and you can catch nonsense instantly. Sometimes the most important result is realizing something cannot be right, because that is where new physics likes to hide.
Along the way I adopt some Fermi style challenges—named after the remarkable physicist Enrico Fermi—to show how these ideas work in real time, and why they are not parlor tricks. They provide a training in scientific judgment. I also end with a preview of what comes next, symmetry, a concept that quietly runs far more of the universe than most people realize.
Enjoy, and feel free to share.
Lawrence
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science With Sabine and Lawrence| New Year's Edition: Big ideas, precision measurements, and prebiotic molecules.
New Year’s Eve always comes with that familiar urge to clean the slate, toss out what didn’t hold up, and keep what actually earned its place. That’s basically the spirit of our latest “What’s New in Science” …
Notas del episodio
New Year’s Eve always comes with that familiar urge to clean the slate, toss out what didn’t hold up, and keep what actually earned its place. That’s basically the spirit of our latest “What’s New in Science” episode with Sabine Hossenfelder.
We began with the season’s favorite shiny object: wormholes. The headlines have been everywhere, but we talked through why most of these stories quietly slide from “a speculative tool in a model” to “a virtual phenomenon that might be useful in calculations.” Traversable wormholes of course still run straight into hard constraints like negative energy and the time machine problem.
From there we moved to something much more grounded: CERN. ATLAS has now observed the Higgs decaying into muon pairs, which is exactly the kind of precise confirmation you want for the Standard Model, and while it is yet another remarkable confirmation of how well the fundamental feature of the Standard Model works, it once again sharpens the contrast with the inexplicable nature of the only feature that doesn’t seem to fit: neutrino masses. And it leaves us hanging about where to look next.
We next spent time on what the future might look like for big particle collider projects and what it says about the field’s priorities, including the signal sent by China’s latest five-year plan, which no longer features a massive circular collider proposal. We touched on a smaller CERN result as well, and used it to reflect on a broader point: some of the most stubborn, interesting physics lives in regimes that are messy rather than glamorous.
Then we took a quick detour into a quantum gravity-adjacent proposal about whether the way we average quantities in general relativity could matter for quantum corrections, and finally landed on a genuinely satisfying closer: OSIRIS-REx’s Bennu samples. Finding ribose alongside other prebiotic building blocks makes it harder to dismiss the idea that the chemistry of life might be widespread, and not a once-only cosmic fluke.
I hope you enjoy the episode, and I hope you’re welcoming the new year surrounded by friends and family. Thank you, as always, for listening and for your continued support.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeThe Like Button, and the Strange Power of Tiny Ideas | Martin Reeves
On this week’s episode of The Origins Podcast, I ended up in a place I genuinely never expected to go: the humble “like” button. When the idea first landed in my inbox, my reaction was basically, why on Earth …
Notas del episodio
On this week’s episode of The Origins Podcast, I ended up in a place I genuinely never expected to go: the humble “like” button. When the idea first landed in my inbox, my reaction was basically, why on Earth would anyone write a whole book about that? Then I spoke with Martin Reeves, and I discovered that the history of this tiny icon is a surprisingly rich window into innovation, entrepreneurship, human psychology, and the modern attention economy.
Martin is a senior figure at BCG’s Henderson Institute, but what made the conversation especially fun for me is that he is not a consultant who wandered into science. He has a background in science, and then wandered into the world of strategy, technology, and ideas, and he approaches the “like” button the way I wish more people approached our digital world: with curiosity, skepticism, and a willingness to follow evidence across disciplines.
The central irony, of course, is that the “like” button began as an almost laughably small, practical solution. In the story Martin and his coauthor reconstructs, it is often less about a single inventor than about a messy ecosystem of micro innovations, technical constraints, and cultural accidents. Yet those small choices compound. The result is that something as simple as a handful of code became a universal signal that helped shape social media, transformed advertising, and created feedback loops that are now baked into the infrastructure of daily life.
We also dig into why it works so well on us. The mechanisms are not mysterious in the abstract, they are biological and social, but the scale is unprecedented. Approval and recognition are ancient. Industrialized approval is new. And once you start thinking that way, you notice how these same feedback dynamics are spreading into new domains, including the tools we now use to interact with AI.
This conversation surprised me, and I suspect it will surprise you too. Indeed, if you are like me, and wondered why the like-button is worth discussing, you will be surprised to learn how much of the modern world is quietly organized around it.
You can listen on any podcast platform, watch on YouTube, or view ad free on Substack. And if you are tempted at the end, well, you may even find yourself clicking the very thing we spend the episode dissecting.
You can listen on any podcast platform, watch on YouTube, or view ad free on Substack. And if you are tempted at the end, well, you may even find yourself clicking the very thing we spend the episode dissecting.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePolarization, Powerlessness, and what We can Actually Do
On this week’s episode of The Origins Podcast, I am excited to release a conversation that has been sitting in our archives for more than a year. When we first recorded this discussion with conflict mediator …
Notas del episodio
On this week’s episode of The Origins Podcast, I am excited to release a conversation that has been sitting in our archives for more than a year. When we first recorded this discussion with conflict mediator and systems thinker Diana McLain Smith, political polarization was already a significant national and international problem. It has only gotten worse.The world seems more tribal than ever, and there is constant pressure to have to pick a side in every argument and not listen to any different opinions, or even divergent facts. In this episode, we step back from that noise and ask what our deep evolutionary wiring for in group loyalty means in a complex modern democracy, how history and culture can turn ordinary differences into hardened divides, and what it might take to reduce the space between “us” and “them” rather than accept permanent hostility as normal.Through stories that range from local communities like Billings, Montana and Lewiston, Maine to the quiet work of reform in the United States Congress, Diana draws on decades of experience with families, organizations, and civic coalitions to show that citizens are not as powerless as we often feel, especially when we resist the demand for instant certainty and allow ourselves to say, “I do not know, I have not really thought about that before. I’m not on any one side. Let me look at the evidence before I form an opinion.”
This is the basis of much of the scientific method, and it is something that we can all learn to do too. The benefits are immediate. You approach life with more curiosity, and you are freer from assumptions and biases.
Conversations like this go to the heart of the Origins Project Foundation mission, which is to bring the habits of mind that underlie science into our shared public life. My conversations on the podcast blend serious works in physics, psychology, and history with urgent questions about how we live together, and to model what it looks like to treat ideas as hypotheses to be tested rather than badges of tribal identity.
In an environment that rewards outrage more than understanding, a commitment to evidence, curiosity, and a willingness to change one’s mind is not just an intellectual posture, it is a civic act.
This episode with Diana is offered in that spirit.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeAnnouncing our new 12-part series: A dozen Lessons on Physics and Reality
I am thrilled to introduce a significant new segment for the Origins Podcast. We are producing a fully fledged 12-part series titled “A Dozen Lessons on Physics and Reality.” Over the coming months, we will …
Notas del episodio
I am thrilled to introduce a significant new segment for the Origins Podcast. We are producing a fully fledged 12-part series titled “A Dozen Lessons on Physics and Reality.” Over the coming months, we will release these lectures to provide a comprehensive guide to how physicists think about the world. I’m particularly excited to share the wonder and insights that are often lost in standard textbook descriptions, while giving more detail than one might obtain in a standard 1 hour physics lecture. These will be based on lectures I have given to non-scientists at institutions I have taught, ranging from Yale University to The New College of Humanities in London.
We begin with Lecture 1: A Tour of the Universe.
To understand the cosmos, we must abandon the linear scales of human experience. In this opening lecture, I utilize the mathematical tool of “powers of ten” to map the true playing field of physics. This tour is about perspective. It reveals how the universe operates on scales of space and time that are vastly different from our daily lives, ranging from the subatomic scales to the cosmic microwave background. It is a journey that highlights our cosmic insignificance while simultaneously celebrating the power of science to explore our origins and to change our perspective of our place in the cosmos. This tour is just the beginning. Here is the full curriculum we have planned for the series:
* A tour of the Universe
* The Gestalt of Physics: Tools for seeing
* Space, Scale, and Symmetry
* Motion, from Galileo to Einstein
* Gravity, Dark Matter, and the Expanding Universe
* Electricity and Magnetism, a repeat performance
* The Four Forces of Nature
* Quantum Mechanics 1
* Quantum Mechanics 2: Chemistry
* Quantum Mechanics in your face
* Heat worth dying for?
* The meaning of scientific truth
This initiative ties directly into our ongoing efforts at The Origins Project Foundation to expand our impact and achieve our mission of enhancing your excitement and appreciation of the wonders of the cosmos, providing the public tools to better understand the challenges of the 21st century, and how to deal with them. By making these fundamental ideas accessible, we hope to inspire a deeper appreciation for the scientific method and its importance in creating the world we live in, and producing a better world tomorrow.
Enjoy!
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe(Rebroadcast) Noam Chomsky | Prescient Predictions? | Trump, Brazil, and American Fear
This week, I’m excited to share a special rebroadcast from the Origins Podcast archives: my original Origins Podcast conversation with Noam Chomsky.We recorded this dialog over six years ago, as an update to a …
Notas del episodio
This week, I’m excited to share a special rebroadcast from the Origins Podcast archives: my original Origins Podcast conversation with Noam Chomsky.
We recorded this dialog over six years ago, as an update to a conversation we’d held three years prior , before the political upheavals of Trump and Brexit.
Listening back now, it’s striking how much of what Noam said remains relevant, and in many cases, deeply prescient. As always, he was incisive, informative, provocative, and brilliant. We covered a huge range of topics, starting with the history of anti-intellectualism in America and the role of intellectuals during the Vietnam War , before moving into the nature of American exceptionalism.
We also dove into the pressing foreign policy issues of the day, including North Korea, Syria, Israel, Venezuela, and Brazil. While many of the underlying causes may be the same, it’s fascinating to see how some of these situations have played out in ways we might never have predicted.
From his analysis of free speech debates to his critical concerns about nuclear weapons and the environment, it’s a conversation that remains incredibly important.
I hope you enjoy revisiting this fascinating conversation.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeWhat's New in Science With Sabine and Lawrence
As we move into the end of the year, I’m excited to return to our recurring series “What’s New in Science” with my co-host Sabine Hossenfelder. In this month’s episode, we started by tackling a favorite …
Notas del episodio
As we move into the end of the year, I’m excited to return to our recurring series “What’s New in Science” with my co-host Sabine Hossenfelder. In this month’s episode, we started by tackling a favorite subject: scientific hype. Sabine kicked things off by dissecting a recent, highly suspect press release claiming a million-qubit quantum computer is on the horizon. I then brought up a National Geographic article claiming that “warp drive is speeding closer to reality” , and we discussed the reasons why it actually isn’t, including the need for “negative energy,” that keep it firmly in the realm of science fiction.
From there, Sabine steered us into the world of academic accolades, discussing the controversy around last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for work on neural networks and the collaborative nature of science. I then introduced this year’s prize, which was awarded for the beautiful and precise experimental work on seemingly macroscopic manifestations of quantum mechanics—specifically, showing a superconducting quantum state can “tunnel” through a barrier.
Finally, we turned to cosmic mysteries. Sabine presented a report on search for “Dark Stars,” a theory that the first stars might have been powered by dark matter annihilation , which require some wishful thinking and what I think are not particularly well motivated physics. For full disclosure this is an issue I thought about in a slightly different context almost 40 years ago and have some a priori skepticism about. I closed with a much more plausible bit of exotic physics that may have been observed: new observations of long-lived gamma-ray bursts. A new model suggests these are caused by a black hole that has merged with a star and is consuming it from the inside out.
From wild hype to implausible and plausible models to Nobel-winning physics, I hope you enjoy the conversation.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeSpooky Physics!
In a special Halloween episode of the Origins Podcast, which I’ve have decided to call “Spooky Physics!”, I explore why you shouldn’t be afraid of the unknown, and in particular of supernatural gobbledygook. We …
Notas del episodio
In a special Halloween episode of the Origins Podcast, which I’ve have decided to call “Spooky Physics!”, I explore why you shouldn’t be afraid of the unknown, and in particular of supernatural gobbledygook. We look at the fundamental physics that debunks popular supernatural ideas.
Take ghosts, for example. Physics is a two way street. If you can see a ghost, it must interact with light. But that very interaction, electromagnetism, is what stops you from walking through a wall. A ghost simply can’t have its cake and eat it too; it either goes through walls or you can see it. Not both.
I also confront one of the biggest misuses of physics today: the co-opting of quantum mechanics. People seize on Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” to argue that consciousness can change the universe just by thinking. This is complete nonsense. I explain what entanglement really is and why it does not allow you to affect things remotely, no matter how much you might want to.
The moral of today’s topic is simple: don’t be afraid. And more importantly:
The real universe, with its actual quantum wonders and black holes, is far more interesting than any supernatural fantasy.
Enjoy Halloween…especially the candy.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeGad Saad: Final Episode of The War on Science Interviews
As The War on Science continues to circulate and reach readers around the world, I had the privilege of closing our Origins mini series, The War on Science Interviews, with my colleague and book contributor Gad …
Notas del episodio
As The War on Science continues to circulate and reach readers around the world, I had the privilege of closing our Origins mini series, The War on Science Interviews, with my colleague and book contributor Gad Saad. It felt fitting to end the series with a candid and provocative conversation that reflects the spirit of the project itself.
The essays and interviews collected around this book address a wide range of concerns: the ideological corruption of science, the erosion of free speech in academia, the replacement of scholarship with activism in many disciplines, and the disruptions now spreading from mathematics to medicine. We explore how cancel culture and DEI bureaucracies weaken excellence, how biology is distorted for political ends, and how false premises about gender and sex compromise both science and medicine. The conversations are blunt and challenging, but they also aim to outline principles that can help universities recover integrity, trust, and the courage to return to embracing free inquiry.
Gad and I discussed many of these themes directly. He confronts the absurdities of modern campus culture, and his voice joins those the other contributors who have argued that ignoring these trends will not make them disappear. Many academics have hoped the problems would fade on their own. They have not. The internal culture war in academia must be confronted openly if scholarship and science are to thrive in the West.
I am hopeful the book will spark debate in universities and among the wider public. If you would like the full context for this episode, you can watch the complete War on Science Interviews mini series at this link here. In the meantime enjoy this episode now.
With this finale, Origins now returns to its regular biweekly release schedule. We have some fascinating new conversations, educational content, and science news in store that I am excited to share.
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeKarleen Gribble | The War on Science Interviews | Day 20
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Dorian Abbot – August 12
Karleen Gribble – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeDorian Abbot | The War on Science Interviews | Day 21
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeJudith Suissa and Alice Sullivan | The War on Science Interviews | Day 19
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeAlex Byrne and Moti Gorin | The War on Science Interviews | Day 18
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeLauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau | The War on Science Interviews | Day 17
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribePeter Boghossian | The War on Science Interviews | Day 16
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribeRoger Cohen and Amy Wax | The War on Science Interviews | Day 15
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview …
Notas del episodio
To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:
Richard Dawkins July 23rd
Niall Ferguson July 24th
Nicholas Christakis July 25th
Maarten Boudry July 26th
Abigail Thompson July 27th
John Armstrong July 28th
Sally Satel – July 30
Elizabeth Weiss – July 31
Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1
Frances Widdowson – August 2
Carole Hooven – August 3
Janice Fiamengo – August 4
Geoff Horsman – August 5
Alessandro Strumia – August 6
Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7
Peter Boghossian – August 8
Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9
Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10
Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11
Karleen Gribble – August 12
Dorian Abbot – August 13
The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war.
The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship.
The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west.
I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe
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