What's New in Science With Sabine and Lawrence | Ghost Murmers, New Wires, Cosmic Questions, And AI cures?
4/24/20261 hr 8 min
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.
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First 90 secondsLawrence M. Krauss· Host0:00
[gentle music] Okay, here we are, and welcome to a new episode [laughs] of the Origins Podcast. One, one of my favorite segments here is my friend and colleague, Sabine Hossenfelder, and here she is across the Atlantic to talk to me about true things and not true things, and interesting things, and some things that may not be so interesting, and we'll decide. So, welcome.
Sabine Hossenfelder· Guest0:28
Good to see you.
Lawrence M. Krauss· Host0:30
It's always good to see you. And, um, and I think you should have the chance of leading off with quantum murmurs. So go ahead.
Sabine Hossenfelder· Guest0:39
Yeah, quantum murmurs, ghost murmurs. Uh, so I got a lot of questions about this because there were some headlines saying that the US government used some long range entanglement, quantum entanglement to find a missing soldier in Iran. Um, and you know, I was like, "W- h- how the hell is this supposed to work?" And so, so it's a device that's supposedly called a ghost murmur, and the word m- the word murmur refers to, like, heart murmurs, because they can measure the heartbeat, uh, of a soldier in a desert over dozens of kilometers away, supposedly. Uh, and so yeah, well, this is all very, uh, entertaining, so, um, you know, I thought about what it might possibly have meant. Um,