Cosmology, Physics, and the Search for the Origins of the Universe | Brian Keating

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In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with astrophysicist and experimental cosmologist Brian Keating. Brian has devoted his career to developing and using scientific instrumentation to study the early universe and is the author of the recently published Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor, selected as one of Amazon’s Ten Best Nonfiction Books of the Month and one of Nature Magazine’s Six Best Books of the Season.

Brian walks us through the history of experimental cosmology. We start with an examination of the early geocentric models and show how the scientific revolution and the introduction of empiricism altered the course of physics. We consider the works of Galileo Galilei, Harlow Shapley, and other great and influential cosmologists and physicists of the past five-hundred years. How are scientists able to measure the age, size, and make of the universe? How have cosmologists and experimental physicists attempted to find evidence for or against cosmic inflation and the big bang hypothesis? Towards the end of the discussion, Brian Keating recounts what it was like to lose the Nobel Prize and what the experience taught him about the negative impact of bias and contradictory incentives in science.

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