In Theory with Janna Levin

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Every discovery starts with a question. What if? Why?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (0:04)

How?

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That's snhu.edu/startalk.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson (1:18)

Coming right up on StarTalk is a one-on-one conversation between me and my good friend and colleague, Janna Levin, a theoretical physicist. Why? She's got a new series appearing on our channel called In Theory. You're gonna learn all about what makes the mind of a theorist tick and how it connects to what we know, what we don't know, and what we have yet to discover in this universe. Check it out.

Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture are one and the same.

Janna Levin (2:05)

Is everything that's possible in the universe inevitable if the laws of physics allow it? Will nature experiment with every possibility, no matter how improbable?

I'm Janna Levin, and this is In Theory.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (2:29)

Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. We've got a special version of the show today.

This has got just me and Janna Levin returning to StarTalk.

She is the Claire Tao Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, right up the street. And she's, we have several theorists at large. She's one of them among our favorites. And we're gonna talk to her today about some recent projects she's been up to to bring more of the universe down to earth for you. So Janna, we're gonna talk about some of the weirdest, wackiest theories of the universe, because you cover them in a new series appearing in the StarTalk channels called.

Janna Levin (3:25)

In Theory.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:26)

In Theory. Love it.

In Theory.

Janna Levin (3:30)

Yeah, that's where all the big ideas happen. And then we hope nature finds a way.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (3:36)

I spent time at Princeton where there are a lot of theorists, not only today, but historically. And there's a sign on a door there that says, never trust an observation unless it's confirmed by a theory.

How do you feel about that?

Janna Levin (3:52)

Well, as you well know, that's inverting the usual adage where theorists are often chastised for not being experimentally verifiable. But sometimes it's just a few hundred years of patience.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (4:08)

I read up on the themes and I love it.

Janna Levin (4:12)

Yeah. We're out there.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (4:14)

You're out there because the laws of physics tell you what's possible.

Janna Levin (4:19)

And I think we used to imagine nature picked a specific example, but we kept learning over and over again that nature was kind of rolling the die, trying different combinations, whether it was planets, organisms, stars.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (4:34)

Because the laws of physics allow more than what we might see in any given moment. Yeah.

Janna Levin (4:41)

To manifest in this universe. We used to think the earth was it, the sun was it, and we realized in some sense, anything that was physically possible seemed to be attempted by nature. And if you think of the entire principle of evolution, that it's trying again and again under pressure, but nonetheless experimenting with every possibility.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (5:02)

And not all experiments work.

Janna Levin (5:04)

Not all experiments work, and not all experiments can be tried on this planet. But if we go further out, maybe all experiments are tried on other planets. And if you really want to go out there in total, other universes, right? So I think the question is, if it's theoretically possible, maybe nature's tried it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (5:23)

So as another way to say that is, if it's theoretically possible, whether or not we've yet to see it or discover it, might it be inevitable?

Janna Levin (5:33)