For anyone who hasn’t been following along on other social media, the big news is that I’ve started a podcast, called Mindscape. It’s still young, but early returns are promising!
I won’t be posting each new episode here; the podcast has a “blog” of its own, and episodes and associated show notes will be published there. You can subscribe by RSS as usual, or there is also an email list you can sign up for. For podcast aficionados, Mindscape should be available wherever finer podcasts are served, including iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and so on.
As explained at the welcome post, the format will be fairly conventional: me talking to smart people about interesting ideas. It won’t be all, or even primarily, about physics; much of my personal motivation is to get the opportunity to talk about all sorts of other interesting things. I’m expecting there will be occasional solo episodes that just have me rambling on about one thing or another.
We’ve already had a bunch of cool guests, check these out:
- Social psychologist Carol Tavris
- Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli
- Historian/activist Alice Dreger
- Atheist theology professor Anthony Pinn
- Complexity theorist Geoffrey West
- Professional poker player Liv Boeree
And there are more exciting episodes on the way. Enjoy, and spread the word!
The podcast has been great so far! I’m impressed by the guests you’ve had and am excited to see who you’ll have on in the future and the interesting topics that will be discussed.
So cool to have a consistent way to hear your thoughts and interactions. Can’t wait!
Very excited. Always enjoy listening to you. I’ve enjoyed listening to your lectures. I’ve read your books, all the while having an inner “Sean Carroll” voice reading the book to me (It’s like Morgan Freeman, only better).
Hello Sean
I have been following you for sometime now (since 2005) in all kinds of your public and not so public outreach. You have changed me in many different ways. My beliefs, my knowledge of universe and so on and so forth!!:)
My only regert is that I have never met you. I live in Toronto and been saving for a trip to LA,to your university so may be I’ll be lucky enough to meet you.
It has been a previlge to know of you and your work. Please continue what you doing and never stop being you.
Sorry for the long comment,my first finally, I have some technical questions which I don’t know I can ask you here?. I missed my chance to go to university,but physics is my passion and can’t get enough. I truned 50 years old recently and I regert not having a degree in physics any waking moment of my life mostly because of you (which is a good thing) if I had no money worries to support my family I will do anything to get a degree in phyices. I don’t know about others but for me everything you say in technical terms comes easy, except the math for obvious reasons. I think it says more about you professor as it says to my intelligence.
Hope to meet you one day
Physicesnut!!
Tremendous venue, Sean! One-on-one really works, both for you and your topics.
First, some thoughts about video:
Could future podcasts be recorded as split-screen (Skype-style) videos? I enjoyed Episode Zero, particularly how your facial expressions reinforced your words. While I primarily listened, I did occasionally rewind and watch the video to better catch the nuances.
I prefer when the speakers are looking into the camera, seemingly at me, rather than the camera taking in a wider view, where I am explicitly a spectator.
Of course, if the video sucks, it need not be posted.
Next, about your premise, the desire to pursue deep interests outside your day job, and a topic suggestion.
My undergraduate Computer Engineering degree required only two liberal arts classes, both in basic writing. I bulked this up by directing most of my other electives toward arts and, most importantly, a one-year philosophy sequence. That sequence changed both WHAT thought, and HOW I thought.
In the decades since, I’ve often encountered the large gaps in my liberal arts education, but only that taste of philosophy allowed me to recognize them as such, and to pursue rather than avoid them.
I recently heard the end of an NPR story mentioning “Digital Humanities”, and I felt my perceived gap between “hard science” and liberal arts (along with the “softer” sciences) snap closed.
Are you familiar with “Digital Humanities”?
Sean, I know it is not exactly your field, but would you please get an exoplanet expert onto your podcast. I’d love to hear about the latest developments in this field and the prospects for the future in this field. I’d also love to hear what you have to say about this through the perspective of a cosmologist and particle physics expert. There’s so much content here, everything from methodology: transit, doppler, and atrometric, to the mystery of “hot Jupiters” and finally the search extraterrestrial life. Thank you-a huge fan, math teacher, and science enthusiast.
This is absolutely the best podcast I subscribe to! Thank you so much. I never knew I was interested in poker playing, but that episode is as rivetting as the others. I look forward to many, many more episodes.
These are great Sean. Rovelli and West so far. I’m somewhat familiar with the latter’s work but all who claim or wish to be should hear this podcast (along with diving into the papers if they can).
Please add the podcast in podbean. Follow your interviews in joe rogan and robert wright podcastas. Thanks!
and suggestions for future ‘casters (OK, people *I’d* like to hear):
Stu Kauffman
Cathy O’ Neill
Nate Silver
Naseem Taleb
(and of course) Scott Aaronson
The Carlo Rovelli podcast was excellent. This is great!
I feel like I understand the principles of cognitive dissonance well but even when I know how to recognize my shortcomings I am still unable to overcome their effects. I have forced myself to adopt beliefs that I normally would have immediately dismissed just for the fun of debating it. Beliefs are not easy to shake once they take root. Especially if a belief is reinforced when debating with internet denizens. If a belief is obscure enough then it might even be impossible to find someone to debate you back into your original position.
For instance, the amount of information and energy that is smeared across the event horizon of a black hole is determined by the Bekenstein bound. What I don’t understand is if a black hole will gain mass by absorbing the energy from the constant bombardment of CMB photons on its boundary. Since the mass and the surface area determines the energy and information stored in space then does an increase in surface area mean that a black hole also increases its cross section for CMB absorbing photons? Do supermassive black holes grow faster than small black holes?
If two supermassive black holes are orbiting each other then do the mutual tidal forces create areas of less surface area near the poles of the black holes? If the surface areas locally decrease and the amount of information stored locally exceeds the Bekenstein bound then will the black hole radiate the energy difference away? If the energy density is high enough will that generate matter and deposit it in a halo around the galaxy or does the matter escape the galaxy? How can we determine experimetnally if a black hole can create matter from light? I know the correct answer is that baryogenesis happened only during the big bang and that quasars and blazars are created by super heated matter emitting x-rays in accretion disks. Cognitive dissonance is a weird feeling.
Hi Sean – I was lucky enough to catch the panel discussion on time at SFI. I particularly enjoyed your contribution and am thrilled to find your podcast! If you are open to suggestions – I would love to hear a solo episode where you discuss the ways in which some of these topics affect the way you operate in your daily life. For example – does the ‘Many Wolds’ theory ever enter into your decision making? Does your belief that there isn’t really a reason for there being something in the universe affect your behavior? Forgive me if you’ve addressed this somewhere else. I’m new to the blog. Thank you for all of the great discussions and ideas!