Into the Impossible
The Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: Join tens of thousands of curious people. Two reasons to subscribe today:📖 Get Flatland — free - Edwin Abbott's strange masterpiece on dimensions and perception. The book that made me a scientist, sent the moment you sign up. ☄️Win a real meteorite - Every new subscriber is entered to win an actual fragment of the early solar system. A piece of space, on your desk.
How I Contaminated 500 Experiments (By Talking Too Much)
Musing Dear Magicians, Feynman taught: Don't fool yourself. Turns out, I'd been fooling myself for 5 years—every time I filled a silence I should have measured. Let me explain. I run a podcast. You may have heard of it. And if I forget to mention it, the trusty folks at Reddit are sure to remind me how bad a podcaster I am. Here's what I've learned after 500+ episodes: I talk too much. Shocking, I know. A professor who loves the sound of his own voice. But here's the thing. Every experiment...
My Birthday Gift to You 🎁
Today is my actual birthday — and instead of asking for presents, I want to give you one. 🚀 My new book, Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner, has launched! It’s packed with the wisdom of 9 Nobel laureates into practical strategies to concentrate your creativity and ignite your career. Endorsed by productivity supernovas like Cal Newport and Ali Abdaal, it’s designed for anyone who wants to sharpen their focus and think like the best minds in the world. Here’s the deal: ⭐ Launch Week Special —...
The University Delusion
Musing Dear Magicians It’s back to school season and so I want to discuss something that should be obvious but apparently isn't: we have constructed the most elaborate and expensive cargo cult in human history, and we call it "higher education.”Consider the psychopathology here. Parents like those caught in the "Varsity Blues" scandal literally committed felonies—bribing coaches, fabricating test scores, photoshopping their children's faces onto athletes' bodies—for the privilege of...
Locked
🔭 Did We Just Discover Alien Life? Not So Fast… 🧬
🔭 Did We Just Discover Alien Life? Not So Fast… 🧬 A new study from Cambridge University using data from JWST claims a potential biosignature—dimethyl sulfide (DMS)—has been detected in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b using the James Webb Space Telescope. On Earth, DMS is only produced by life, sparking headlines declaring this a “revolutionary moment” in the search for extraterrestrial life. But is it? In this video, we break down what the discovery actually means—and what it definitely...
Resending: The Dark Reward of Science: Seeking Truth Sparks a Backlash
Musing Dear Magicians, Opening yourself up to the world and dialogue with everyone from experts to skeptics is part of the mission I set out for years ago. But lately, I’ve felt the strain of what it means to engage in this digital town square—a space where curiosity and criticism collide. This week, I was struck by the comments on my video with Katalin Kariko, some of them sharp and accusatory. Most of these came from vaccine skeptics, as I anticipated during the chat. Here’s one that...
Do Robots Dream of Turing Machines?
Musing Something about my birthday last week hit differently this year. Being on the downslope of my final half-century sparked thoughts on aging and mortality, and it led me to consider Bronnie Ware's regrets of dying and how I might structure my life to avoid such laments. The core themes emerge: living authentically, balancing professional pursuits with personal fulfillment, expressing emotions openly, nurturing relationships, and actively choosing happiness. But simultaneously, one must...
It’s my birthday 🎉 Plus: when guests collide 💥
Musing It’s my birthday, yay! I’m now 6% closer to 100 than 0 😢. Instead of doing a cliched version of ’53 lessons learned on the way to being 53’ I wanted to share my gratitude for your presence, not just your presents (gift request below). I recently did a banger video about a new challenge to a theory of quantum gravity — called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG). Now, while I'm sure you’re all salivating at the thought of learning advanced theories of physics on a Monday morning, I’ll spare you...