Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Think like a physicist. Wonder like a human. Into the Impossible is where Cosmic Conversations happen — uniting Nobel Prize winners, iconoclasts, authors, and technologists to explore reality’s deepest questions. From AI to aliens, from biophysics to the brain, from the cosmos to the multiverse, Brian Keating, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego covers it all. If you’ve ever asked What’s out there? or What’s next?, this is where curiosity meets clarity. Learn to think like this. 🎙 Full episodes, notes & more: briankeating.com/podcast

Episodes

From Pipe Bombs to Viagra: Nobel Prize Winner’s Secrets Revealed

October 6, 2025 • 53 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Lou Ignarro went from building pipe bombs as a curious teen to winning the Nobel Prize for discovering how a gas—nitric oxide—regulates blood flow, fuels Viagra, and revolutionized cardiovascular medicine. In this explosive conversation, we trace how one molecule transformed sex, science, and the story of human health. Key Takeaways: 00:0...

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EXCLUSIVE: Avi Loeb Reveals: What HiRISE Just Saw on Mars!

October 4, 2025 • 116 mins

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb joins Brian Keating to discuss a groundbreaking observation: the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged 3I/ATLAS, a rare interstellar visitor, from the vantage point of Mars. In this episode, we explore: • What HiRISE detected and why it matters for planetary science. • How interstellar objects like ʻOumuamua and 3I/ATLAS challenge our theories. • Why Mars may become an ...

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Is AI Our PARTNER or Our ENEMY? Google CTO Blaise Agüera y Arcas

September 30, 2025 • 72 mins

Get started with 1 month free of Superhuman today, using my link: https://try.sprh.mn/briankeating Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Is AI our partner in evolution, or is it a harbinger of our downfall? In this episode of Into the Impossible, I sit down with two brilliant minds to explore the current and future relationship between artificial intelligence, human evolution, a...

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The Scientists: Lord Kelvin’s Dangerous Idea (Absolute Zero)

September 28, 2025 • 20 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Dive into the fascinating world of Lord Kelvin, a pivotal figure in the scientific revolution! In this video, we explore his groundbreaking contributions, including the concept of absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale. oin my mailing list here 👉 briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite! 💥 Timestamps: 00:00- Introduction to Lord...

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Steven Pinker on Cancel Culture, Common Knowledge & AI

September 24, 2025 • 50 mins

Get 3 months off the annual plan and start learning faster at shortform.com/impossible In this episode, Steven Pinker unpacks how common knowledge shapes everything from why rational people can’t agree to disagree to why markets boom and bust. We explore the risks of falsifying expert claims, the power of social norms, and whether civilization is held together by truths—or by the fictions we all agree to share. — Key Takeaways: ...

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What Really Happened on the Moon?

September 22, 2025 • 88 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Brian Keating sits in the guest chair on Julian Dorey's podcast. This fascinating conversation dives deep into the heart of science, skepticism, and the culture wars swirling around them. Together, Brian and Julian tackle everything from wild theories about NASA, the South Pole, and the moon landing, to the challenges of scientific gatekeeping, t...

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How to Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner | The James Altucher Show

September 17, 2025 • 72 mins

James sits down once again with cosmologist Brian Keating—longtime friend of the show and author of Into the Impossible: Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner. In this candid conversation, they challenge each other’s views on focus, curiosity, and the trade-offs of staying in your lane. Brian shares behind-the-scenes lessons from interviewing Nobel Prize winners, the thinking behind his new “Keating Test” for AI, and why communication ma...

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Are We Wrong About the Big Bang? Niayesh Afshordi

September 16, 2025 • 80 mins

Get Dr. Brian Keating’s NEW Book for Only 0.99! This week only: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FN8DH6SX?ref_=pe_93986420_775043100 For over a century, cosmologists have believed that the universe began a single fiery moment. The Big Bang. But what if that story is incomplete? Or what if it's even wrong? My guest today, Professor Niayesh Afshordi, is a professor of astrophysics at the Perimeter Institute and the University of Wat...

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The Matrix Is a Documentary: Riz Virk on the Simulation Hypothesis

September 14, 2025 • 75 mins

Get my new book Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner for just 99 cents while the sale lasts: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 What if your life wasn’t real—not metaphorically, but literally? That’s the premise my guest today has been exploring for years. Rizwan Virk, MIT graduate, gaming entrepreneur, and author of The Simulation Hypothesis, believes that ...

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The Man Who Named the Big Bang… and Hated It! Fred Hoyle

September 12, 2025 • 48 mins

Buy my new book Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner for just 99 cents for a limited time only https://a.co/d/hi50U9U Join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Fred Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang”—but he hated the theory it described. Instead, he championed the steady state universe, helped uncover the stellar origin of the elements, and gave us the immortal phrase: “We are stardust.” This vid...

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David Deutsch Says We Will Build Humans Before We Build AGI

September 11, 2025 • 32 mins

Get My New Book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner, for Only $ 0.99! This week only: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U David Deutsch offers his insights into the physics that will impact our future, challenging our new technologies, such as AGI and the development of synthetic humans, as depicted in movies. Join us for this fascinating discussion as we go INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE. KEY TAKEAWAYS 00:00:00 – 00:00:39 Could machines experience th...

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Is 3I/ATLAS Alien Technolgy? Avi Loeb & MIchael Shermer DEBATE

September 9, 2025 • 98 mins

Get my My new book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner -- https://a.co/d/hi50U9U It's just 99¢ on Kindle for launch week ONLY. It’s the perfect companion to this conversation—lessons in thinking clearly, staying curious, and pushing past conventional wisdom from my conversations with 22 Nobel Prize winners! Brian Keating sits down with Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb and renowned skeptic Michael Shermer to dissect the latest enig...

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Thomas Hertog: What Came Before The Big Bang?

September 6, 2025 • 54 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 In a sweeping conversation drawn from his collaboration with Stephen Hawking, Thomas Hertog explores the radical “no-boundary” theory—a vision of the cosmos with no singular beginning, evolving laws of physics, and a past that isn’t fixed until observed. Rejecting the untestable multiverse, Hertog and Hawking built a fully quantum cosmology tha...

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Ben Shapiro: Free Will, AGI, and the Scavengers Ruining America's Future

September 2, 2025 • 63 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 We talk with Ben Shapiro about his new book “Lions and Scavengers” and how we each have a lion and a scavenger inside of us. Today’s society is shaped by lions who build great things, while the scavengers try to tear them down. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional resources: B...

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The Computer Expert That Just Solved AI’s TOUGHEST Challenge (ft. Rose Yu)

August 26, 2025 • 59 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 Could an AI physicist soon out-innovate Einstein? In this exciting interdisciplinary exploration, UC San Diego’s Rose Yu dismantles the romantic myth of genius-driven science and instead offers a thrilling look at how AI could become not just a computational tool, but a genuine partner in discovery. Rose draws from her pioneering work in traf...

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David Deutsch: Quantum Theories Are Just MIRACLES! (But not this one)

August 23, 2025 • 81 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 David Deutsch just exposed something shocking about modern science. Most quantum theories aren't actually science at all. They're just miracles disguised as explanations. When you ask how quantum entanglement works, most interpretations by popular scientists basically reduce to "magic happens." That's not science, that's giving up on our underst...

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The PHYSICS Of Happiness (ft. Arthur C Brooks)

August 19, 2025 • 59 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 — Arthur Brooks has just done the unthinkable. He’s shattered one of the most enduring myths in both science and society with the precision of a physicist and the insight of a seasoned psychologist. We’re talking about the belief that our minds peak in our thirties and only decline from there. Well, it turns out this belief isn’t rooted in p...

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The Quantum Secret Einstein Tried to Warn Us About

August 16, 2025 • 37 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/list to win a meteorite 💥 What if the most successful theory in science… doesn't actually explain anything? In this episode of Into the Impossible, I talk with physicist and author Adam Becker, who wrote What Is Real?, a stunning exploration of quantum mechanics, its messy philosophical roots, and the long-ignored questions about what the theory really says about rea...

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Do We Have Free Will and Will AI Have It Too? (ft. Sabine Hossenfelder)

August 14, 2025 • 78 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Does free will exist? It's a question that's haunted philosophers for centuries. But physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has a provocative answer that might just disturb you. She says free will doesn't exist. Everything is determined by the laws of physics. But here's the paradox that's fascinated me. I've talked to Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Robert S...

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Are Humans Smart Enough to Understand the Universe? (ft. Stephen Wolfram)

August 6, 2025 • 77 mins

Please join my mailing list here 👉 https://briankeating.com/yt to win a meteorite 💥 Why aren't whales building rockets? They have bigger brains than we do after all. In this episode with Stephen Wolfram, we talk about why more brainpower doesn't always mean more understanding, and how neural architecture faces physical constraints. Stephen Wolfram says even super intelligent AIs may hit hard computational limits. In our conve...

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Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Pipe Bombs to Viagra: Nobel Prize Winner’s Secrets Revealed

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}EXCLUSIVE: Avi Loeb Reveals: What HiRISE Just Saw on Mars!

Is AI Our PARTNER or Our ENEMY? Google CTO Blaise Agüera y Arcas

The Scientists: Lord Kelvin’s Dangerous Idea (Absolute Zero)

Steven Pinker on Cancel Culture, Common Knowledge & AI

What Really Happened on the Moon?

How to Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner | The James Altucher Show

Are We Wrong About the Big Bang? Niayesh Afshordi

The Matrix Is a Documentary: Riz Virk on the Simulation Hypothesis

The Man Who Named the Big Bang… and Hated It! Fred Hoyle

David Deutsch Says We Will Build Humans Before We Build AGI

Is 3I/ATLAS Alien Technolgy? Avi Loeb & MIchael Shermer DEBATE

Thomas Hertog: What Came Before The Big Bang?

Ben Shapiro: Free Will, AGI, and the Scavengers Ruining America's Future

The Computer Expert That Just Solved AI’s TOUGHEST Challenge (ft. Rose Yu)

David Deutsch: Quantum Theories Are Just MIRACLES! (But not this one)

The PHYSICS Of Happiness (ft. Arthur C Brooks)

The Quantum Secret Einstein Tried to Warn Us About

Do We Have Free Will and Will AI Have It Too? (ft. Sabine Hossenfelder)

Are Humans Smart Enough to Understand the Universe? (ft. Stephen Wolfram)

Popular Podcasts

From Pipe Bombs to Viagra: Nobel Prize Winner’s Secrets Revealed

EXCLUSIVE: Avi Loeb Reveals: What HiRISE Just Saw on Mars!