The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss Lawrence M. Krauss

Michael Turner has been one of the leading pioneers in the emerging field of particle-astrophysics: the effort to understand the large scale properties of our universe by exploring the fundamental microphysics that ultimately governed the earliest moments of the big bang. It has been an area in which most of my own research has been focused, so it is not surprising that Michael I became on and off research collaborators starting about 40 years ago. In 1995 Michael and I published a paper arguing that 70% of the energy of the universe must reside in empty space if the data at the time were to be self-consistent. Three years later two groups confirmed our prediction, and were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2011 for that discovery. Michael later coined the term “dark energy” to describe this completely mysterious quantity.
Michael is not only a leading scientist, he is also a leading expositor of astrophysics, having written one of the seminal books about the physics of the early universe, and he is frequently sought out by journalists to comment on current results, and by academic audiences for his popular lectures. He has a wry sense of humor, and over his more than 40 years of scientific research he has been involved in many of the key developments that have shaped astrophysics. He has also helped direct the national research effort itself, having been a deputy director of the National Science Foundation, and a former president of the American Physical Society.
Mike and I sat down for a long overdue discussion of his own perspectives on the field. We discussed his personal history, motivations, and challenges as a young scientist, and then went on to discuss many of the key areas of progress in cosmology over the past 40 years, including some puzzles which remain today, and about which one often reads in the popular press. For anyone interested in cosmology, our discussion will shed a great deal of light on which problems are real, and which are not, and also give a new perspective for how far we have come over the last half century in unraveling many of the mysteries of the universe.
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.


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Jeffrey Sachs was the youngest tenured professor in Harvard’s history when he was promoted only a few years after receiving his PhD. And for good reason. He is one of the most remarkable intellects I know. I have always been amazed and the breadth of his reading and knowledge, and when I give him one of my physics books, he reads it in a day, and comes back with great questions.
Jeffrey has not been content to stay within the confines of academia, and for 17 years served as a senior advisor to the head of the UN, and has worked, sometimes controversially, with numerous governments to help them out of economic hardships. His interest in world affairs has caused him to write a great deal about power politics, global conflict, and diplomacy, and I wanted to sit down and talk to him about two conflicts about which he has written recently, Ukraine and Gaza.
But first, we talked about his own career, his interest in economics, and also his thoughts about the UN, an agency which of late has dropped considerably in my own estimation.
I agree strongly with Jeffrey that only diplomatic solutions to military conflicts have any hope of lasting, and that nationalist politics that sustain military adventurism inevitably only causes the people within both warring countries undue hardship. But how to extricate countries from the cycle of violence is a difficult challenge, and Jeffrey doesn’t mince words in that regard. I have to say that I agree with him wholeheartedly about Ukraine. Not as completely on the Middle East, though our disagreements are subtle. We both agree that a two state solution in the middle east is essential, and detest many policies of the current Israeli government, especially on the west bank (although no more than I think we both detest the policies of the terrorist lunatics governing Gaza, who seem intent on inflicting as much or more hardship on their own populace as any external government does, most often to score political points on the world scene) I am less sanguine about the likelihood that UN troops and Arab nations could or would realistically and fairly implement and police such a situation, but I sympathize with his views that the UN may be the last resort.
I expect I may read some angry feedback about some of Jeffrey’s suggestions, but once again, reasoned discussion, especially about disagreements, is essential if we are to make progress, in science, and in the real world. As a result I feel particularly lucky to have people like Jeffrey to have such discussions with. I hope you are as stimulated and educated by the discussion as I always am when I talk to him.
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

You’ve probably heard of Serotonin, or Dopamine. Those are the sexy neurotransmitters that get all the press. However, you have probably not heard of Glutamate. Which is a shame because it is probably the most important neurotransmitter in the brain, responsible in large part for its growth, and also its plasticity.
Mark Mattson is a neuroscientist with a distinguished career as Director of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. While initially interested in developmental biology in animals, Mattson’s work in endocrinology led him to become to study the effect of hormones on the brain. Eventually he began to focus on the role of the Glutamate in neuroplasticity and Alzheimers disease. He realized how essential that neurotransmitter was for understanding the very formation of the brain, the growth of neurons, and the formation of axons and dendrites, as well as its key role in brain functions including learning and memory .
I first got to know Mark when we co-organized a workshop on Pattern Processing in the Human Brain, where we invited well known neuroscientists as well as computer scientists and AI researchers to come together to discuss areas of joint interest. The idea was to explore key features that may underlie consciousness, and also to explore how to ensure how to avoid the error-prone brain functioning such as one finds in Schizophrenia as AI systems are developed. The public event associated with the workshop was entitled Creativity and Madness, and involved a dialogue between me and actor Johnny Depp.
Most recently, Mark has written a fascinating book, entitled Sculptor and Destroyer, to describe and explain the importance of Glutamate in brain formation and functioning. We had a fascinating discussion about that, and also how he became interested in the brain after initially planning to become a veterinarian. I hope you find the discussion as enlightening as I did.
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

I admit I was somewhat intimidated when the prospect of hosting Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist Charles Duhigg on the podcast was raised. What caused my angst was the subject matter we would discuss: Communication.
Hosting this podcast has been a learning experience, in so many ways. Since listeners are very free with advice, especially when they don’t like the conversational aspect of the dialogues, and would prefer an interview format, I have often had to come face to face with my own failures of communication. Charles had just completed a book, Supercommunicators, which has since become a New York Times bestseller about the tools that so-called ‘supercommunicators’ use to bring out the best in conversations. It includes interviews with, and stories about, people from a wide varieties of occupations and experiences, from a former FRB recruiter, to two people on opposite sides of the current gun-control debate, and even to the creators of Big Bang Theory, about how they achieved their goals of communication.
The techniques revealed in the book, and in our conversation, are remarkably illuminating. Perhaps the most important tool, which sounds remarkably simple, but nevertheless is often absent in conversations is to decide in advance what type of conversation one is about to be engaged in: practical, emotional, or social. Without this recognition, the ultimate success of any subsequent conversation is unlikely to be profound.
In our subsequent podcast discussion, I wanted to engage in all three types of conversations, with some clarity in advance about where we were going, beginning as always with what took Charles to the starting point of his writing, and concluding with what the impact on his own personal life had been by all he had learned when researching the book. Thinking about the skills he discussed certainly had an impact on my own efforts during the podcast, and I hope will improve discussions on all future podcasts. You, the listeners, will be the judges of course.
I hope you will enjoy and be enlightened by the ground we covered. 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 channel as well.


Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

I have had the privilege of working closely with Frank Wilczek for over 40 years, on and off, and we have written perhaps a dozen scientific papers together over that time. Our collaborations together were always a source of joy, and often of wonder, and I am pleased to say that a number of them had significant impact on our fields of study.
While I have had the privilege of working with many talented scientists during my career, Frank is unique. He is one of the most broadly read, deep, and creative scientists I have known. To first approximation, he has read everything in science, and one of the characteristics of our own collaborations that has been so much fun is entering an entirely new field of study and learning how much is known about it, and how that knowledge might be used in new contexts.
Frank is likely the most significant theoretical physicist of my generation, and along with Ed Witten, perhaps the intellectually most gifted. That he won the Nobel Prize for work performed as a graduate student with David Gross to develop the theory of one of the four known forces in nature is notable, but it just scratches the surface of his interests and accomplishments.
While Frank and I have appeared onstage together on numerous occasions, I was waiting for the opportunity to sit down with him for an extended period to discuss his life in science, and the areas of study that reflect the most significant developments of recent times, and the outstanding challenges in our field. It was a pleasure to be able to do so for this podcast. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that it inspires your interest in the world around us.
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 channel as well.


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I first stumbled upon the journalist Katherine Brodsky, who has been a commentator and writer for various media outlets, when I heard about her new book, No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage. The title intrigued me but I admit I was a bit skeptical. Having written and spoken about co-called cancel culture in the academic world, I expected I might find nothing new in her book, but I was wrong.
Katherine was motivated to write her book after her own experience of being mobbed online after having defended a colleague in an online media group she helped moderate, for the crime of having posted a job opportunity at Fox News. While she had become aware of the growing social intolerance she was witnessing around her, it was her own experience that caused to make a crucial decision. These kind of experiences can be debilitating, as she had discovered, and she decided to explore the experiences of others, to see how they had recovered their voices, fought back against the mob, or otherwise moved on.
The stories in No Apologies are poignant, and fascinating. Katherine is a clear and compelling writer, and an eloquent expositor, as I discovered during our discussion. We explored her own experience, her interests in journalism, and her own takeaways from the stories she explored as a journalist, which form the basis of the book. It was a fascinating and provocative discussion, and in many ways uplifting rather than depressing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that it helps others to deal with the a society that seems to be becoming increasing intolerant to free and open discussion about important issues.
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 channel as well.


Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe