Alan Lightman: Astronomy's Tolstoy -- Improbable Possibilities, Einstein's Dream, & More (#164)

Einstein's Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by
Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in
Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating
his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines
many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, and people are
fated to repeat their triumphs and failures over and over. In
another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by
lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is
a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar. Support our
Sponsors LinkedIn Jobs! Use this link to post your first job ad for
FREE LinkedIn.com/impossible
https://magbreakthrough.com/impossible Probable Impossibilities is
a brilliant collection of meditative essays on the possibilities -
and impossibilities - of nothingness and infinity, and how our
place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be
divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space
extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is
consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What
was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch
in the lab? Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged
consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the
mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.
00:00:00 Intro 00:02:03 What's the status of your movie adaptation?
00:03:15 What about planck time is so interesting to you? 00:09:28
How do you reconcile the fact that great minds often go with bad
people? 00:11:46 The Role of Ego in your current book Probable
Impossibilities, and the story of Andrei Linde. 00:15:11 What do
you think about the proliferation of "god" in cosmology and physics
literature? 00:16:24 What are you views regarding aetheism and
agnosticism? 00:25:12 Does science rely too much on Carl Popper's
assertions about falsifiability? 00:32:26 Do you agree with Stephen
J. Gould? Are religion and science separate but equal, and the
obligation of communicating science to the public. 00:33:24 Should
we be encouraging young people to be science communicators?
00:36:25 How did you come to write Einstein's Dream? 00:42:56 Which
scenario of time do you personally favor? 00:47:53 Final Thrilling
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