'Lawrence Krauss - Life, the Universe, and Nothing: A Cosmic Mystery Story '

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the Vancouver Institute. Lawrence Krauss' work has been primarily in theoretical (as opposed to experimental) physics, and he has published research on a great variety of topics within that field. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist and popularizer of modern science and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. Hailed by Scientific American as a rare public intellectual, he is the author of more than three hundred scientific publications and 8 books, including the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek, and the recipient of numerous international awards for his research and writing. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. His soon to be published book, A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing is already garnering strong reviews. Exploring the scientific advances that provide insight into how the universe formed, Krauss ultimately tackles the age-old assumption that something cannot arise from nothing by arguing that not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing.

[EMPtea-aye]

Pre-youtube only dozens would have seen it.

[kennylong]

09:30 What Hubbell discovered was REFRACTION. It is common sense that light which has travelled over billions of light-years across space, and been bounced around, and filtered through unimaginable quantities of interstellar dust and had to pass unimaginable quantities of objects, large and small, that that light has been subjected to, over and over again, to REFRACTION. "Red Shift" cannot always to be interpreted as "Doppler Effect", but can be just as well be explained by REFRACTION. Especially because in increases with distance!

[bigdickpornsuperstar]

So, a universe from nothing is impossible, but a god from nothing who creates a universe from nothing is perfectly plausible?
Basically you're saying religion is belief in a middle man... a stage magician who pulls universes out of a hat. ::facepalm::

[geoden]

I've come across many things in this lecture before, but I still wish I'd seen it 8 years ago.

[helenbostock]

Thanks you have the written launage that goes along the screen it really helps me. You explain it so well. I watch you later because its a lot to take in. I think you're right

[elenna_alexia]

So sad that this doesn't have more views while videos that have no significant value to our understanding of anything have tens of millions of views. But with the five minute attention span many of my generation seem to exhibit it doesn't even seem all to surprising.

[charlestownsend]

The end of this lecture is interesting after we have detected both the Higgs boson and gravitational waves.

[-_Nuke_-]

What makes me sad is that 99% of the people in the comments are blistering idiots compared to the genius of Lawrence Krauss.
Anyway, it was an amazing lecture, Lawrence Krauss one of the best science lecturers I know for sure.

[jeanmeslier]

The distance of many galaxies was calculated by the janitor, who never completed high school.
Milton Humason's meticulous work so impressed Hubble that he made him his assistant. Hubble had him added to the astronomical staff as a full member. Some of the other astronomers got all in a snit about it.
A very interesting story within itself.

[glutinousmaximus]

People have trouble with the term 'nothing'. It's not surprising I suppose. We can't actually point to a concrete example of such a concept - it's completely abstract. What Lawrence is referring to is actually 'space'. There is no known place in the universe where there is 'nothing'. Even voids like the Boötes void which is a huge volume of space with little matter, still has plenty of stuff in it, like radiation and light passing through, gravity waves and around one atom of hydrogen per cubic metre. Good lecture by Lawrence.

[TheAtlashead]

Christopher Hitchens... his genius lives beyond the grave.

[davidrobinson]

Absolutely brilliant. Professor Kraus could give a lecture on how paint dries and make it interesting.

[punnasamamao]

"Not only can something arise from nothing, but something will always arise from nothing.". Wow !

[robertmcclintock]

Everytime an artist make something social and intelligent it has artistic integrity. That only possible in a created universe.

[MrPetalhead]

Bloody nice chap .... enjoyed his talk

[bySelie]

looking at that exploding star in the example gives me goosebumps.. that thing is intense..

[peteyofcanada]

I would really appreciate proper closed-captioning for this and other UBC videos.

[twomicefighting]

So... In the event there was humans on earth so far into the future and the universe has expanded beyond anything being visible outside the Milky Way, will this cosmologists etc. have to take this on faith? Will scientists study the writings of today's geniuses like Krauss in the same way believers follow books that were written up to 2 or 3 thousand years ago?

[TrevinoTrevino-wbsq]

He can't escape the probabilities. That's why he never dare mention them.

[prsplayer]

Doesn anyone know the name of the supernova pictured at 17:00? i want to find that image but seeing as there are thousands of images from hubble, knowing it's name may help?