Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I have an extra special guest. His name is Thomas
Speaker 1: Lynn and he has a fascinating background in math and
Speaker 1: science as well as journalism. He is the founding editor
Speaker 1: of Quanta Magazine, which is a news and math website
Speaker 1: founded and funded by Jim Simon's foundation UH. Simmons is
Speaker 1: the founder of Renaissance Technologies, one of the most successful
Speaker 1: hedge funds in the world. UH. Jim Simons and his
Speaker 1: wife Marilyn run a philanthropic foundation where they are very
Speaker 1: interested in math and science education, both at at the
Speaker 1: most basic level UM educating American UM students to be
Speaker 1: better at math and science, and as you'll see with Quanta,
Speaker 1: at the very highest levels. I've been a fan of
Speaker 1: the site for since it launched. It's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 1: You don't need a PhD in mathematics or science to
Speaker 1: be able to keep up with it. It's really intriguing UM.
Speaker 1: Thomas has done a wonderful job finding some of the
Speaker 1: most interesting research and stories UH and breaking news about
Speaker 1: the latest discoveries in math and science, and making it
Speaker 1: very readable and very accessible UM. If you're at all
Speaker 1: interested in science and math, and really all of us
Speaker 1: should be. Then I think you'll find this conversation to
Speaker 1: be absolutely fascinating. So, with no further ado, my conversation
Speaker 1: with Quantum Magazines editor in chief Thomas Lynn. My guest
Speaker 1: this week is Thomas Lynn. He is the founding editor
Speaker 1: of Quantum Magazine. It is an award winning editorially independent
Speaker 1: science and maths eight published by the Simons Foundation. Uh.
Speaker 1: That is the philanthropic arm of Jim Simons, who founded
Speaker 1: Renaissance Technologies. Uh. Thomas Lynne previously was the digital editor
Speaker 1: for The New York Times. UH. He comes to us
Speaker 1: by way of Cornell University and the Oregon State University,
Speaker 1: where he got his masters in teaching and literatures. At right,
Speaker 1: that's right, fantastic Thomas Lynn, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you. So.
Speaker 1: So you have a really eclectic background, and I want
Speaker 1: to spend a little time, um getting into that and
Speaker 1: find out how you ended up found in Quanta. But
Speaker 1: let's talk about your background. You're an engineer, you're a
Speaker 1: former editor at the Times. How do you end up
Speaker 1: um creating a magazine like Quanta. Yeah, it's a kind
Speaker 1: of a crazy story and I think with as with
Speaker 1: a lot of people who end up in in a
Speaker 1: place that they ultimately really enjoy and feel very uh
Speaker 1: satisfied with, and in terms of their careers, I sort
Speaker 1: of fell into it. I mean I started out, you know,
Speaker 1: in college, just not knowing what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and I studied physics and I studied literature, and you know,
Speaker 1: really was all over the place, and so ended up
Speaker 1: sort of utilizing a little bit of the physics side
Speaker 1: of things as an engineer initially, but then I also
Speaker 1: wanted the human aspects I taught for a few years,
Speaker 1: and I realized, especially after nine eleven, Uh, I realized
Speaker 1: that I wanted to be out there in the world
Speaker 1: learning more about what's happening and helping up bring news
Speaker 1: events to the broader public. And so I decided to
Speaker 1: become a journalist and eventually backed my way into science journalism.
Speaker 1: So so you end up at the Writer's Institute at
Speaker 1: the Cuney Graduate Center, ultimately you start teaching journalism there.
Speaker 1: When you look at the world of science writing, are
Speaker 1: there many people who have both aspects the hard science
Speaker 1: of physics and either literature or journalism or does that
Speaker 1: make you a relatively rare bird. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that people, a lot of people are are smarter than
Speaker 1: I am, and when they're young and they realized what
Speaker 1: they're good at, and they specialized and they either go
Speaker 1: sort of the science track, or they've become you know,
Speaker 1: humanities major, they study literature, they study you know, something else,
Speaker 1: or they go into law or medicine or something like that.
Speaker 1: I really just had a broad interest from a very
Speaker 1: young age, and I loved writing. It's very interested in literature.
Speaker 1: But I also had parents who were essentially physicists, and
Speaker 1: I grew up in this very science culture kind of
Speaker 1: environment all my family. I have a lot of scientists
Speaker 1: in my family, and so there's always that part of
Speaker 1: my brain that that works that way. So both parents
Speaker 1: were physicists. What what was the dinner table conversation like, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I was definitely pushed to go ahead in things like
Speaker 1: math and physics in in school. I ended up studying
Speaker 1: calculus after my freshman year in high school. And um,
Speaker 1: and you know, so the conversations were about everything, but
Speaker 1: there was definitely a scientific bent to a lot of
Speaker 1: those conversations. And we had my mom loved puzzles and
Speaker 1: we had puzzles all over the place in our house.
Speaker 1: That's that's interesting. So you spent a few years doing journalism,
Speaker 1: you end up as a digital editor at the New
Speaker 1: York Times. What would then involve? Yeah, So initially I
Speaker 1: started on the national desk at the time, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't about science at all, and I was just a
Speaker 1: journalist to learn about what's happening in the world and
Speaker 1: bring that to people. And uh, and that was great.
Speaker 1: I mean the Times. When I decided I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into journalism, you know, like many people, the Times
Speaker 1: was the dream, right, That's where I wanted to be
Speaker 1: and I was very lucky to be able to land
Speaker 1: that that job when I did, And I started on
Speaker 1: the digital side, which code really interesting opportunity in terms
Speaker 1: of that interface between the newer technologies that we're starting
Speaker 1: to change the ways journalism was done and sort of
Speaker 1: the older traditional legacy print publication and there a lot
Speaker 1: of things were just changing. As a very sort of
Speaker 1: radical time in a way. To be at The Times,
Speaker 1: and I recall the New York Times being pretty leading
Speaker 1: edge in terms of interactive graphics. Anytime there's a complex
Speaker 1: news event, The Times as well as the Wolfs Rejournal
Speaker 1: and later on the Washington Post would have these giant,
Speaker 1: intricate um so Katrina and the flooding. I remember you
Speaker 1: just kind of scroll through that and it was um
Speaker 1: and now you go back and look at it that
Speaker 1: at the time it was so advanced. Today that's kind
Speaker 1: of rookie stuff. It's really bleeding edge technologies very much.
Speaker 1: And then they were they were had a great foresight
Speaker 1: in terms of starting early. They didn't necessarily have it
Speaker 1: all figured out early on, but they started early. They
Speaker 1: started getting stuff on the web, They started hiring people
Speaker 1: like me to think about what we could do did
Speaker 1: journalistically online that wasn't just replicating the paper. Remember working
Speaker 1: on some of the Hurricane Katrina coverage and working all
Speaker 1: night because it was so important to bring people immediate
Speaker 1: pictures of what was happening on the ground. And that's
Speaker 1: not something you can get through a daily newspaper. Right
Speaker 1: the print, listen, print is really important and and the
Speaker 1: written word it really matters. But it's true, if a
Speaker 1: picture is worth a thousand words, what is an interactive
Speaker 1: graphic work exactly? So, so how do you get from
Speaker 1: the Times to Quanta? That's a pretty big um I'll
Speaker 1: avoid all the cliches. That's a pretty big leap, isn't it. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's hard because I was at the Times for
Speaker 1: almost eight years, and about seven a half years after
Speaker 1: the National Desk, I worked on the Science desk for
Speaker 1: about three years and learn a lot from the editors there.
Speaker 1: And I think it was because I was on the
Speaker 1: Science desk somebody from the Science Foundation reached out asking
Speaker 1: did I know any good science editors who could help
Speaker 1: them produce high quality science articles? And I sort of
Speaker 1: scratched my head and I wanted to find out more
Speaker 1: about who I should recommend. So I asked them about
Speaker 1: this job, just to find out who. Yeah, no, but
Speaker 1: and and you know, and and the thing is that,
Speaker 1: you know, I was a journalist, so I was not
Speaker 1: interested in going to do communications or PR that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And so but in talking to the Foundation,
Speaker 1: I started to learn that they actually had this other
Speaker 1: publication already that was editorially independent, and there was a
Speaker 1: possibility that whoever came into this role could do some
Speaker 1: editorially independent science journalism. And so I got a little
Speaker 1: bit interested in thought, well, what if we actually could
Speaker 1: start a magazine and do something a little bit bigger
Speaker 1: and really changed the way hopefully that people see how
Speaker 1: science coverage is done. And and Quanta Online I linked
Speaker 1: to it pretty regularly. I I love some of the
Speaker 1: graphics that you guys do. It's pretty clear that this
Speaker 1: is a well thought out, big budget specialty site. UM,
Speaker 1: so it's not it's not that big budget actually, so
Speaker 1: we have a really small team who that was very
Speaker 1: very hard because well, let me then rephrase that it
Speaker 1: looks like it has a pretty big budget because it's there.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of you know, ge whiz uh
Speaker 1: special effects, but it's pretty in depth UM coverage and
Speaker 1: and a lot of the breaking news in math and science.
Speaker 1: And I know that's almost a counterintuitive statement. It doesn't
Speaker 1: just get you know, a rip and read off a
Speaker 1: PR release. It's a deep explanation about here's what just
Speaker 1: was discovered through this research, and here's why it's significant,
Speaker 1: and here's how this fits into the long history of
Speaker 1: this aspect of math or science exactly. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: why I wanted to start this publication as I looked
Speaker 1: out there at the offerings that most mainstream publications had
Speaker 1: in terms of their science coverage, and it was a
Speaker 1: little disheartening. I have to say, I mean not not
Speaker 1: only the level of the lack of depth of the coverage,
Speaker 1: but also to some extent, the choice. I mean, so
Speaker 1: much of what you see is health and technology coverage,
Speaker 1: but so little of it is fundamental basic science, which
Speaker 1: is really where all of our knowledge comes from about
Speaker 1: the world and by the universe around us. And so
Speaker 1: I wanted to cover not only these subjects, which are
Speaker 1: inherently the most fundamental, deepest, biggest questions we have about
Speaker 1: everything and what's you know, what's in the universe, how
Speaker 1: things work, but also covered in a way with a
Speaker 1: little bit of depth, still tell engaging stories about it,
Speaker 1: but actually get things right, do the careful fact checking,
Speaker 1: do the careful reporting and research, take the time to
Speaker 1: get the story right, and to tell the more nuanced
Speaker 1: story of what's happening in science. Quite fascinating. So let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that. I had a conversation
Speaker 1: recently with someone, and part of our discussion was having
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that we are living in a golden age
Speaker 1: of physics, of new mathematical breakthroughs of astrophysics. We have
Speaker 1: never known more about the universe either on an astronomical
Speaker 1: level or at the quantum level than ever before. Am
Speaker 1: I overselling that or is that a fair statement? I
Speaker 1: think it's it's it's I think that's fair. On one hand,
Speaker 1: so we are learning more than ever. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we're also learning how much we don't know, and I
Speaker 1: think that's also where we are. So it's a golden
Speaker 1: era in terms of being in this I think it's
Speaker 1: very exciting the things that we can do now, whether
Speaker 1: it's experimentally in terms of the theories and the math
Speaker 1: that's being developed. At the same time, we're also hitting
Speaker 1: the limits of what we can test experimentally in terms
Speaker 1: of the largest structures and and thinking about the cosmos,
Speaker 1: but also the smallest um you know, quantum level interactions.
Speaker 1: We're sort of coming to a point where the theories
Speaker 1: can no longer be fully tested primarily, and that is
Speaker 1: leading to a little bit of an internal uh, sort
Speaker 1: of soul searching, and and you know, there's there's work
Speaker 1: to be done to figure out what the next revolution
Speaker 1: will be in physics. So so the Dunning Krueger curve
Speaker 1: applies to everything. You could say that so um, and
Speaker 1: for those of you who are not familiar with that,
Speaker 1: just google Dunning Krueger and you'll you'll spend hours reading
Speaker 1: fascinating things about the things we think we know but don't.
Speaker 1: But but that's really kind of a fascinating area. As
Speaker 1: we approach the limits of what we can test in
Speaker 1: the laboratory, does that mean theoretical physics or or moving
Speaker 1: away from applied mathematics, the theoretical math becomes an increasingly
Speaker 1: important aspect of our research. Well, I think that's where
Speaker 1: the debates are happening right around this is you know
Speaker 1: both things, whether it's in the laboratory in terms of
Speaker 1: looking at things that are really small, or also even
Speaker 1: looking out what we can actually uh in terms of
Speaker 1: the visible universe, what we can see, and of course
Speaker 1: there's a lot that we can't see in terms of
Speaker 1: dark matter and dark energy, things that we most of
Speaker 1: the universe is universe is made up of stuff that
Speaker 1: we don't even know what it is, or we're just
Speaker 1: not seeing what's there. And there's an interest. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember. So I have two of your books, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about later, But there was just a debate
Speaker 1: about dark matter, and part of the question becomes is
Speaker 1: there is dark matter really the universe or dark matter
Speaker 1: and dark energy together, or are our technologies and ability
Speaker 1: to perceive the rest of the universe not picking up
Speaker 1: what what may or may not be there, and so
Speaker 1: the assumption is it's dark matter or something else. How
Speaker 1: much of this is a measurement issue and how much
Speaker 1: of this is g We really have no idea what
Speaker 1: x out there. Well, there there is a lot of
Speaker 1: indirect evidence that this stuff is out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: everything that we're observing indicates that dark matter and dark
Speaker 1: energy does exist. There are some theories out there that
Speaker 1: have I think slowly been they're they're sort of not
Speaker 1: they're they're losing faver because the evidence is not supporting it.
Speaker 1: There's some ideas of modified gravity and and other ways
Speaker 1: that you could explain away things like dark matter. But
Speaker 1: I think most physicists agree that dark matter and dark
Speaker 1: energy exists, but we just don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: and we don't have the ability to detect it, and
Speaker 1: we can't see it because um, whatever it is, it's
Speaker 1: not in it. Well it's it's dark, but it's not
Speaker 1: interacting with things that we can detect. But we we
Speaker 1: continue to see that the universe continues to expand faster
Speaker 1: than it would if if visible matter and energy was
Speaker 1: all there was. So there has to be something driving
Speaker 1: galaxies apart no matter what direction in space, right, the
Speaker 1: movements of galaxies. Uh, you know, there's got to be
Speaker 1: something that that's affecting that movement, and that's the dark matter.
Speaker 1: And then the acceleration in the universe. Uh is the
Speaker 1: dark energy causing that? So so let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Quanta. You're a foundation based publication as opposed
Speaker 1: to a subscription slash advertising UM format. How does that
Speaker 1: make UM what you do a little different and does
Speaker 1: that afford you freedoms to go places that perhaps the
Speaker 1: traditional media just simply doesn't have the time or patients. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think it is liberating in the sense that we
Speaker 1: are both editorially independent and yet we are funded to
Speaker 1: do this very mission oriented, very important kind of journalism
Speaker 1: making fundamental science accessible to all. Uh. There are other
Speaker 1: publications like this that are nonprofit, that are funded by
Speaker 1: foundations like Pro Publica for example, that are very important
Speaker 1: investigative journalism. And these are the areas of journalism that
Speaker 1: have a hard time attracting advertisers. They're very expensive because
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of time to do it well,
Speaker 1: but they don't pay for themselves, and so they've been
Speaker 1: slowly receding from the commercial publications that that we have
Speaker 1: none of None of your headlines would would make it
Speaker 1: onto BuzzFeed just to say the least um. How neanderthal
Speaker 1: DNA helps humanity. The neuroscience behind bad decisions uh in
Speaker 1: newly created life form a major mystery. I mean, these
Speaker 1: aren't the sort of things that are especially clicky, but
Speaker 1: there are important parts of new research, and disseminating them
Speaker 1: out from behind a payball is important, very much. It's
Speaker 1: very important that's freely accessible. And you know, we try
Speaker 1: to make our our headlines inviting, but at the same
Speaker 1: time we try to capture a little bit of what
Speaker 1: the story is really about, and so we don't do
Speaker 1: the click bait, we don't do things that are overly
Speaker 1: sensational or misleading. So so really that raises the key question,
Speaker 1: how do you decide, hey, this is a good topic,
Speaker 1: this is a good subject, or this piece of research
Speaker 1: is accessible enough to those people who aren't experts in this.
Speaker 1: You know, it used to be you're a generalist a
Speaker 1: mile wide and not too deep. Now it's the opposite.
Speaker 1: Everyone is such a specialist. It's a quarter inch wide
Speaker 1: and a mile deep. How do you decide who to
Speaker 1: appeal to? Yeah, first of all, I would say that
Speaker 1: there's nothing that I consider something that we wouldn't cover
Speaker 1: in terms of how difficult it is. That that's something
Speaker 1: that we that's sort sort of our calling card as
Speaker 1: a publication. We we will cover the hardest, most abstract,
Speaker 1: difficult subjects out there, but we uh, you know really so.
Speaker 1: The one thing is that as journalists and as people
Speaker 1: who have been covering this, uh these areas for quite
Speaker 1: a while, we do get a sense and we get
Speaker 1: get a sense of developed hopefully a good taste in
Speaker 1: terms of what are important and interesting stories. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we're not experts in these subjects, so we
Speaker 1: can't just say, oh, well, I think this is important,
Speaker 1: therefore we're just going to cover this. We actually talked
Speaker 1: to a lot of the true experts out in the field.
Speaker 1: We talk to many people, and not just people with
Speaker 1: their own pet theories, but to enough people where we
Speaker 1: can get a sense of okay, there there is this
Speaker 1: uh groundswelling of of of interest and level of excitement
Speaker 1: about this new idea and it's worth talking about. At
Speaker 1: the same time, it's worth talking about the caveats to
Speaker 1: and the limitations, and so we try to do that
Speaker 1: as well. So who are the journalists you have writing
Speaker 1: about these very hard subjects. Are they science people first
Speaker 1: who can write? Or are the writers who have an
Speaker 1: interest in science? It's really both. Yeah, so we have both.
Speaker 1: We have people who we have a former math professor
Speaker 1: who who is now a fantastic probably one of the
Speaker 1: best math writers journalists out there today. We have our
Speaker 1: our staff of the writer uh studied at least part
Speaker 1: way through a physics graduate program. But we also have
Speaker 1: our our staff math writer is someone who was humanities
Speaker 1: major and and did not have a math background, but
Speaker 1: now has been covering up for enough long enough and
Speaker 1: who has been talking to enough of the top experts
Speaker 1: that he has this just crystal clear ability to explains
Speaker 1: some of the most difficult, profound, pure mathematics that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe. And so it's something. And you know other
Speaker 1: writers like Carl Zimmer, very well known biology writer. He's
Speaker 1: written for us a couple of times. He was also
Speaker 1: a humanities major as well. He's one of the foremost
Speaker 1: biology writers of our time, and and has has even
Speaker 1: written textbooks on evolution and things like that. So really
Speaker 1: it can come from both sides as long as you
Speaker 1: end up in a place where you can do both
Speaker 1: understand enough of the of the deep science and write
Speaker 1: well about it quite quite fascinating. So no less an
Speaker 1: expert than Sean Carroll writes for a number of fine publications,
Speaker 1: including The New York Times, Cold Quanta A revelation and
Speaker 1: what makes Quanta different than your typical math or science publication,
Speaker 1: assuming that there are still math publications, I don't know
Speaker 1: if there are. Well, that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: there really aren't any popular math publications, and that's partly
Speaker 1: why I wanted to start Quanta as well. That was
Speaker 1: very kind of Shawn to say. Then he also wrote
Speaker 1: the forward to our new science book as well, Some
Speaker 1: Bob Meet the Wall of Fire, and he said some
Speaker 1: really kind things in there. But he also talked about
Speaker 1: something that is is very true about sort of where
Speaker 1: we are in terms of media coverage of science and
Speaker 1: and there are scientists who are the ones who are
Speaker 1: the experts who are doing this work often look at
Speaker 1: even though they do take the interviews and they talk
Speaker 1: to reporters. Uh, they often are quite skeptical of the
Speaker 1: way that the media treats that their work because unfortunately, UM,
Speaker 1: some publications don't take the time to carefully vet the work,
Speaker 1: and they cover things that either aren't necessarily good studies,
Speaker 1: or they don't talk to enough people to get a
Speaker 1: sense of what's really going on, or they just throughout
Speaker 1: these headlines that make it seem like, you know, we've
Speaker 1: cured cancer, when really we haven't. We've learned maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit more about one specific aspect of sure. Look
Speaker 1: at look at how the entire anti vax are craziness
Speaker 1: just ran away from any rational thought and it was
Speaker 1: just a combination of people not doing their homework and
Speaker 1: of course a giant fraud in the land set to
Speaker 1: start out. So the whole thinking behind this is, we
Speaker 1: want to do this right, we want to do it carefully.
Speaker 1: How long do you typically take to create, um, a
Speaker 1: full story. Some of these are pretty in depth, and
Speaker 1: it looks like they're not like I can crank something
Speaker 1: out in twenty minutes. These are not short pieces, right, No,
Speaker 1: not at all. And and you know, it really does
Speaker 1: does depend something. Sometimes there is news that we have
Speaker 1: to respond to quickly, and we have to turn something
Speaker 1: around in a few days. That's that's not that common though,
Speaker 1: in the areas that we're covering, right, So most of
Speaker 1: the time we do have at least a few weeks
Speaker 1: to work on these stories. Uh, some stories, some features
Speaker 1: you know that are a couple of thousand words, could
Speaker 1: take three weeks to do. Some pieces take a few months,
Speaker 1: just partly because we're still developed, the ideas are still developing.
Speaker 1: We need to talk to people, the work isn't quite
Speaker 1: completed yet. And often we're actually covering papers that are
Speaker 1: coming coming out on the archive what's known as the archive,
Speaker 1: which is a repository of scientific preprint papers, which means
Speaker 1: that they haven't yet been accepted to a journal and
Speaker 1: they haven't been peer reviewed. And yet this is the
Speaker 1: place now where you have open access to all sorts
Speaker 1: of important papers that then other scientists can just chime
Speaker 1: in and they can get feedback on it, and we
Speaker 1: can also talk to other experts to make sure that
Speaker 1: a paper is worthwhile, that it's been carefully vetted before
Speaker 1: we cover it. So so let me throw a curve
Speaker 1: bowl at you, because I think the average person is
Speaker 1: unaware of what's going on in academia and publications. UM,
Speaker 1: even though most of this research is funded by the government,
Speaker 1: is taxpayer funded? A handful began as a handful of
Speaker 1: research journals started to get brought up by one or
Speaker 1: two organizations, and they just kept getting brought up, and
Speaker 1: eventually it reached the point where the vast majority of
Speaker 1: academic publications are are behind a paywall. And it's not
Speaker 1: a cheap paywall. These are thousands and thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: How problematic is that for the progress of science? That's
Speaker 1: a great question. This is something I covered for the
Speaker 1: New York Times back in two thousand twelve, had a
Speaker 1: story that was on the cover of Science Times. And
Speaker 1: you know, this is UH, this really goes to the
Speaker 1: fundamental question of what is science for? Who is it for?
Speaker 1: Who has the right to access and see the results
Speaker 1: of the work that are tax money is going you know,
Speaker 1: is paying for essentially, And so you're you're right that
Speaker 1: there have been companies that have been extremely profitable in
Speaker 1: taking the work of scientists, UH, taxpayer funded science and
Speaker 1: the scientists who actually the journals and edit the journals
Speaker 1: often for free, UH and turning around and packaging and
Speaker 1: bundling these into journals, and and that they sell for
Speaker 1: very high price back to universities and normal academic libraries,
Speaker 1: and exactly they have to buy these they make millions.
Speaker 1: And actually so there was a big piece of news
Speaker 1: recently when the the entire University of California UH system
Speaker 1: decided yes, we're no longer to to one particular publishers
Speaker 1: of here, which is really has drawn a lot of
Speaker 1: the ire of of scientists and and people who want
Speaker 1: access to these the science that they're paying for. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad you see did that. Wouldn't it be just
Speaker 1: as easy to have Congress to say, And and by
Speaker 1: the way, if you're going to take our millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of research, you must publish in a no paywall,
Speaker 1: peer review site. And this is this is for everybody,
Speaker 1: not just for a few mercenary publishers. And and that
Speaker 1: puts the onus on the scientists. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really where the the you know, Rubbert meets the road
Speaker 1: in terms of there now people are the scientists act
Speaker 1: the people UH doing the research are put in a
Speaker 1: tough spot in terms of do they continue to submit
Speaker 1: their papers to these very reputable journals where you have,
Speaker 1: you know, these reputation points that affects your ability to
Speaker 1: get tenure and to to sort of move forward in
Speaker 1: your academic career to be published in these, uh, the
Speaker 1: most well known journals. Or do you then say, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start going to the Public Library of Science
Speaker 1: or to the new bio Archive, or we're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: sort of skip that step. And is there enough of
Speaker 1: an set of structure built around those newer forms of
Speaker 1: open access science publications that can then feedback and make
Speaker 1: it worthwhile for for researchers to go that route. Quite
Speaker 1: quite intriguing, you know, given that peer reviews are so
Speaker 1: important to scientific papers, and given how successfully the Internet
Speaker 1: seems to do that, one would think that there would
Speaker 1: be some sort of a venue for people to bypass
Speaker 1: these I know, it's a resume builder. I know, it's
Speaker 1: very prestigious, and anybody who hopes to win subsequent um
Speaker 1: research grants and or rewards wants to be published in
Speaker 1: these places. But there's sort of a vicious cycle. How
Speaker 1: do you break that if you want to disseminate this
Speaker 1: wildly widely um and yet still allow taxpayer research to
Speaker 1: find its way into the hands of public of the public, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's being worked on now. There are some
Speaker 1: groups and people who are leading the charge, who are
Speaker 1: starting things like to buy archive, and who have been
Speaker 1: working on the archive for many years and and trying
Speaker 1: to develop a better model for how to UM publish science,
Speaker 1: how to vet it carefully, and how to ultimately make
Speaker 1: it accessible to anyone who wants to read it. So,
Speaker 1: so you said, the harder subject is to understand, the
Speaker 1: more likely we are to cover it. Can you give
Speaker 1: me an example of that. Okay, that's sort of an
Speaker 1: inside joke. That's that we don't we don't just look
Speaker 1: at that. We don't decide what to cover based on
Speaker 1: how difficult it is. But at the same time, we
Speaker 1: don't shy away from that either. And so I think
Speaker 1: the example that I like to give for that is
Speaker 1: that one of our early viral stories, actually in fact,
Speaker 1: it's still the most popular story that we've ever published,
Speaker 1: is about this very very uh deep physics idea that
Speaker 1: is um both a way it's a geometric way to
Speaker 1: simplify calculations of particle interactions, a way in a sense,
Speaker 1: to simplify what Fynman diagrams tried to simplify back when
Speaker 1: Richard Fineman created them decades ago. Uh and and at
Speaker 1: the same time, this geometric approach could also lead eventually
Speaker 1: hasn't yet, it hasn't improven yet, could lead to a
Speaker 1: way to get things like gravity and space time to
Speaker 1: emerge from from a more fundamental reality. And so this
Speaker 1: was a mind blowing concept. The math itself and the
Speaker 1: physics itself is very complicated, but this story was read
Speaker 1: and shared so broadly, was viewed more than a million times.
Speaker 1: It even made an appearance on um Conan O'Brien show.
Speaker 1: He mentioned it in his in his opening monologue. And
Speaker 1: so this has shared so broadly and widely. But it
Speaker 1: was a mind blowing idea because people, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people hadn't necessarily grasped the possibility that spacetime
Speaker 1: and gravity aren't necessarily the most fundamental aspects of our
Speaker 1: universe and that could be emergent, and that there could
Speaker 1: be things that could lead to a new math, that
Speaker 1: we could figure out a new simple, well somewhat simple
Speaker 1: looking geometries that could be underlying all of reality. Quite
Speaker 1: quite fascinating. Let's talk a little bit about science getting
Speaker 1: a little bit political lately. Isn't politics the antithesis of science?
Speaker 1: So I think yes, Collectively, as a collective enterprise, science
Speaker 1: is all about UH having ideas, UH, carefully examining them,
Speaker 1: finding evidence to support it, and then if it's a
Speaker 1: bad idea, throwing it out right, and if it's a
Speaker 1: good idea, you keep working on you keep refining it further.
Speaker 1: Politics generally doesn't work that way, right, and you sort
Speaker 1: of it's it's much more of a hodgepodge of of
Speaker 1: ideas and people throwing and there's not a lot of
Speaker 1: evidence sometimes supporting that, and so on a collective level,
Speaker 1: I think that's true. Individually, scientists are human also and
Speaker 1: have opinions and have political views, and so I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's as as a human activity that it's
Speaker 1: completely divorced from politics, and certainly not from society. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think that in the sense that science is
Speaker 1: striving for truth and and and and finding facts, and
Speaker 1: politics often does not do that. So I would say
Speaker 1: that they can be quite different at times. So, so briefly,
Speaker 1: why do you find that science literacy is so important
Speaker 1: for people in society who eventually will be casting votes
Speaker 1: that help determine our future. Right, Yeah, I know, I think. Um.
Speaker 1: I think one thing is that uh, science is the
Speaker 1: best way for understanding reality, right, And it's it's the
Speaker 1: way that we've developed all the technologies, all of the
Speaker 1: modern medicine, everything that that we enjoy now in terms
Speaker 1: of the quality of life comes from that. And some
Speaker 1: of the decisions that we have to make as citizens,
Speaker 1: as a country, as a government have a scientific element
Speaker 1: to them, and if we can examine those uh scientific
Speaker 1: facts carefully, we can make better decisions. And the other
Speaker 1: way I think about it is, would you rather live
Speaker 1: in a society where where people just sort of believe
Speaker 1: whether they want to believe? Would you rather be part
Speaker 1: of a community where everyone, even if you have disagreements
Speaker 1: in terms of your ideologies, your politics or philosophy, you
Speaker 1: at least agree that facts are facts. And I think
Speaker 1: that's you know, one of the keys I think to
Speaker 1: me is why I want people to be more scientifically literate. See,
Speaker 1: I would like to live in a society where facts
Speaker 1: are important and and reality matters. But for now I'm
Speaker 1: staying in America so until we resolve that. Um. But
Speaker 1: the funny thing is and I only say that half jokingly.
Speaker 1: On the finance side, you have people like Ray Dalio
Speaker 1: of Bridgewater and and other people who have made that
Speaker 1: exact argument, with the caveat that if you put capital
Speaker 1: at risk based on something that is not reality based,
Speaker 1: well you're gonna lose money. And so what we see
Speaker 1: in politics is there, at least so far, there's not
Speaker 1: a penalty for believing things that are untrue. The beauty
Speaker 1: of the markets are that feedback loop is very immediate. Politics,
Speaker 1: you can go decades. Look at the people who claimed
Speaker 1: smoking didn't close cancer. It took decades before that came
Speaker 1: home to roost right. And I'll just add I think
Speaker 1: this works on a personal level too. I think that
Speaker 1: people who are uh scientifically literate or at least can
Speaker 1: think in a more scientific way, can make better decisions
Speaker 1: for themselves so they don't get into trouble, they don't
Speaker 1: either fall for scams, or they can make better career
Speaker 1: choice and necessartainly it can lead to to better options
Speaker 1: for themselves. That's a fair, fair statement. Here's the credible
Speaker 1: pushback we were going to get about this. And I
Speaker 1: don't mean the flat earth people or the you know,
Speaker 1: anti vaxers or global warming denialists. Very recently something came
Speaker 1: out and now eggs are bad for us again. If
Speaker 1: you remember, eggs were bad for us a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and then eggs were good for us. And I mentioned
Speaker 1: to somebody I was going to be speaking to you,
Speaker 1: and their question was, Margarine, can we eat it? Can
Speaker 1: we throw it away? It was good, it was bad,
Speaker 1: It was good, it was bad. I understand the scientific
Speaker 1: process is provisional, dependent upon whatever the next best piece
Speaker 1: of information that comes along, But how do you deal
Speaker 1: with the public that I just can't keep up with
Speaker 1: all this? How how do you manage that sort of
Speaker 1: expectation that people want black and white answers in the
Speaker 1: world that's really very nuanced. And this is sort of
Speaker 1: what I was alluding to. But for in terms of
Speaker 1: the responsibility, I think that, uh, journalists and the media
Speaker 1: have to cover science accurately and carefully. And uh so
Speaker 1: the one thing is that, yes, there are many studies
Speaker 1: out there. Uh there's there are stronger studies and they're
Speaker 1: weaker studies, and there are there are studies that have
Speaker 1: mistakes in them as well, and so uh, the journalists
Speaker 1: who are covering and writing about science to a broader public.
Speaker 1: Have to be able to differentiate between what are studies
Speaker 1: that are have been done with the right um procedures
Speaker 1: that have the large sample sizes that um, you know,
Speaker 1: have been carefully vetted by others as well, and then
Speaker 1: also even in talking about and writing about it um
Speaker 1: accurately and uh, carefully conveying what the study really says, right,
Speaker 1: because again that's where you get the headlines that say
Speaker 1: we've done this or margin is bad for your assault
Speaker 1: is bad for you, r whatever it is, uh, and
Speaker 1: it really they they ignore too often, uh, the nuances
Speaker 1: of it. What does that study really say? What do
Speaker 1: we not know? And what are we still trying to learn?
Speaker 1: So what do you do with something like quantum physics
Speaker 1: does when we're talking about sub sub atomic particles at
Speaker 1: a certain point, does that just far beyond the grasp
Speaker 1: of a lay person to understand? And how do you
Speaker 1: cover something like that um? Or do you just shrug
Speaker 1: your shoulders and say, no, one's going to ever understand
Speaker 1: what a muan or gluon is amongst the lay population. Well,
Speaker 1: so I would start by saying that even the foremost
Speaker 1: experts physicists don't really understand everything about quantum physics, right, So,
Speaker 1: I mean this is it's very difficult. It's a very difficult.
Speaker 1: It's uh subject to wrap your head around. And yet
Speaker 1: for us, that's the challenge we enjoy, right, We actually
Speaker 1: liken the And I would go a step further to
Speaker 1: say that not only are these subjects uh difficult, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, they're actually some of the most
Speaker 1: fascinating things that we can think about, because this is
Speaker 1: the ultimate sort of the most fundamental aspect or layer
Speaker 1: of reality that we can try to understand. And so
Speaker 1: I would hope that everyone would be interested in want
Speaker 1: to pursue some understanding of this, just for your own
Speaker 1: to satisfy your own intellectual curiosity. And so I think
Speaker 1: the interest is there. But you're right, it is a challenge,
Speaker 1: and we love the challenge and we take it on
Speaker 1: every day. So along those lines, how do you measure
Speaker 1: the success of planta? I don't get the sense that
Speaker 1: you're counting page views and clicks, given that it's not
Speaker 1: just a simple um traffic issue. How do you figure out, hey,
Speaker 1: are we succeeding, are we building a loyal audience, and
Speaker 1: are we making a difference in people's understanding of science.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's really difficult to come up with
Speaker 1: a measure of that right now, that's a good question,
Speaker 1: and so we uh never use traffic as a justification
Speaker 1: for doing a story. We don't chase after clicks or views. However,
Speaker 1: what we're really looking at is impact, right broader impact.
Speaker 1: Are we both covering the science that is important, Are
Speaker 1: we choosing the right stories that ever, and are we
Speaker 1: doing it in a way that it's accessible and it's
Speaker 1: interesting and gets at the key insights in a way
Speaker 1: that enough people will want to read it and learn
Speaker 1: about it. And so there is a measure of of
Speaker 1: reach as well. We do want the audience to grow
Speaker 1: right now. We have see last year, I think we're
Speaker 1: at over seven million people visit our site. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's it's growing year year to year very nicely, because again,
Speaker 1: people are interested in these subjects and we're trying our
Speaker 1: best to make it accessible for them. Um. So it's both. Uh,
Speaker 1: the numbers are important. At the same time, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that the people who are reading it,
Speaker 1: especially the people who are experts who actually know these
Speaker 1: subjects really well, also find it valuable and they they
Speaker 1: find that that this is actually a resource that not
Speaker 1: only they can use, but that we are actually accurately
Speaker 1: covering the subjects for anyone who wants to learn more.
Speaker 1: So what's it like working with the Simons Foundation? I
Speaker 1: know that he has a deep and abiding interest in
Speaker 1: mathematics and has set up a number of philanthropic UM
Speaker 1: goals so try and not only focus on some of
Speaker 1: the really sophisticated, deep progress in math, but also make
Speaker 1: Americans a better UM mathematical society, early learning in math
Speaker 1: and some advanced mathematical UM programs. How do you interact
Speaker 1: with the with the foundation? Yeah? So, and I should
Speaker 1: add that really the one of the founders and the
Speaker 1: president of the Foundation is Maryland Simon's Jim Simon's wife,
Speaker 1: and she leads a lot of the efforts that are
Speaker 1: geared more towards education and outreach and making sure people
Speaker 1: understand and know more about science and Quanta falls under
Speaker 1: that umbrella within the foundation, and so we I speak
Speaker 1: with both Jim and Maryland, and probably a little more
Speaker 1: of Maryland because that's that's uh the area that she
Speaker 1: um leads UM. And you know, really the Foundation is
Speaker 1: a fantastic place to work it's it's a place where
Speaker 1: you have good ideas are supported, and I hope you
Speaker 1: know people think that Quanta was a good idea. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the freedom is uh, whether it's academic
Speaker 1: freedom for researchers to study and pursue what they're interested
Speaker 1: in and to learn whatever they can about the universe,
Speaker 1: or our journalistic freedom to do real independent journalism UM
Speaker 1: while trying to to benefit society and make the impact
Speaker 1: that we can. So so let's talk about the two
Speaker 1: collections that you put out UM. One is on math,
Speaker 1: one is on science. The first one the Prime Number
Speaker 1: of Conspiracy. You have a lovely forward from James Glick,
Speaker 1: who has written a number of books, perhaps most famously Chaos.
Speaker 1: I think right, the master of science writing Chaos. It's
Speaker 1: just a fastening. And his most recent book was on
Speaker 1: time Travel, although I will describe it as somewhat skeptical
Speaker 1: UM and and kind of a survey of all the
Speaker 1: various thoughts on but but in this book you really
Speaker 1: go into a lot of details about various UM new
Speaker 1: discoveries in there are these mathematical problems that have been
Speaker 1: around for decade, in some cases centuries, and whether it's
Speaker 1: computing power or something else. Prime numbers a perfect example,
Speaker 1: the prime number conspiracy. Suddenly we're able to reach conclusions
Speaker 1: that we couldn't have done a century ago or even
Speaker 1: a few decades ago. Right, math is just I mean
Speaker 1: pure math especially right, I mean this is this is
Speaker 1: one of those areas where and then one of the
Speaker 1: deep questions that you know, people have asked over the
Speaker 1: years is, you know, why does math even work in
Speaker 1: describing the real world? Right? Is math invented or discovered?
Speaker 1: That's just one of those questions. It's a great diconomy, right, right,
Speaker 1: and and so but the pure math that we cover, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it is done again to build out this
Speaker 1: logical universe, right, to sort of see where where people
Speaker 1: can explore. It's almost like it's it's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: map to our actual reality. And yet, strangely, some of
Speaker 1: the math that's being developed just again extending our our
Speaker 1: logical universe does come up back to be being very
Speaker 1: useful in terms of the physics and other science is
Speaker 1: that we're studying. So this is just one of the philosophically,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's one of the most interesting questions
Speaker 1: out there. Why does it work? And and let's talk
Speaker 1: about Alison Bob Meet the Wool of Fire. You have
Speaker 1: to explain that title for people who may not be
Speaker 1: familiar with the subject. Sure, sure, I picked the title.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of the stories that's in the book, um,
Speaker 1: because it's sounds kind of dramatic, right you have. And
Speaker 1: the cover has shows two astronauts standing in front of
Speaker 1: this hole in the ground which is supposed to have
Speaker 1: metaphorically represent a black hole, and there's a ring of
Speaker 1: fire around this, uh deep dark pit. Um. And and
Speaker 1: this is actually one of the interesting theoretical questions and
Speaker 1: physics that has come about in recent years. It was
Speaker 1: put forward by a few researchers, including Joe Polcensky uh
Speaker 1: who unfortunately passed away um recently. Um. But the question
Speaker 1: is this, and it's also made that Stephen Hawking put
Speaker 1: forth initially, which is black holes we know, okay, have
Speaker 1: our have intense gravity and they suck things in and
Speaker 1: the things from at a at a quantum level, contain
Speaker 1: quantum information, and if something falls into a black hole,
Speaker 1: you know what happens to that information. Especially after Stephen
Speaker 1: Hawking uh discovered that black holes radiate and if they're
Speaker 1: radiating what's now known as as Hawking radiation. Then eventually,
Speaker 1: over a very very long time period, the black hole
Speaker 1: will evaporate and disappear. And so what happened a lot
Speaker 1: of information that fell into the black hole in the
Speaker 1: first place. You can't physics says, you can't lose information,
Speaker 1: and you've got to conserve information. And so what happens
Speaker 1: to and so this is a paradox which was highlighted
Speaker 1: by this idea that that these researchers, including Jobisky, had
Speaker 1: of a black hole firewall. And so the idea was, well,
Speaker 1: if information that drops in, we can't lose it, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a firewall that just incinerates everything before it gets
Speaker 1: and so it never goes inside. And this also gets
Speaker 1: at again one of the most fundamental questions right now
Speaker 1: in physics, which is how do we reconcile quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: with general relativity, Because general relativity says, if we follow
Speaker 1: Einstein's um laws of gravity, which you know essentially is
Speaker 1: described as as uh curvature and spacetime, if you fall
Speaker 1: into a black hole as you pass the event horizon,
Speaker 1: nothing should happen according to general relativity, should you shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel anything at all, but quantum mechanics says everything has
Speaker 1: to be quantized, everything has to be done in discrete
Speaker 1: bits and is particle interactions. And so that's where you
Speaker 1: have the problem of the information coming falling in and
Speaker 1: possibly disappearing when the black hole evaporates, and that's where
Speaker 1: you get this firewall. And so quantum mechanics makes you
Speaker 1: think maybe there has to be something like a firewall
Speaker 1: or something that that's preventing the information from getting in
Speaker 1: and getting lost. And so there's this big conflict between
Speaker 1: the two most fundamental theories that we have in physics,
Speaker 1: and we don't yet know how to connect those two things.
Speaker 1: It's quite fascinating. We have been speaking with Thomas Lynn.
Speaker 1: He is the founding editor and editor in chief of Quanta,
Speaker 1: as well as two collections of articles Alice and Bob Meat,
Speaker 1: The Wall of Fire, The Biggest Ideas in Science and
Speaker 1: The Prime Number Conspiracy, The Biggest Ideas in Math. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, come back for the podcast extras.
Speaker 1: Will we keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all
Speaker 1: things quantum mechanics. You can find that at iTunes, overcast,
Speaker 1: uh Stitcher, Bloomberg dot com wherever your finer podcasts are sold.
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback, end suggestions right to us
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. You can
Speaker 1: check out my daily column at Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at rid Halts. I'm Barry Rid Halts.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Masters and Business Fun Bloomberg Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast, Thomas. Thank you so much for for
Speaker 1: doing this. Um. I've been reading Quanta pretty much since
Speaker 1: it first came out and kind of felt like it
Speaker 1: was you and me and not a lot of people
Speaker 1: um knew about it. I'm a little bit of a
Speaker 1: science geek, um, but every now and then there's something
Speaker 1: kind of intriguing and accessible, and so I would work
Speaker 1: some of your your stories into my my list of
Speaker 1: go read these ten things each morning than you reading that,
Speaker 1: and uh, well, it was just really interesting stuff. And
Speaker 1: I love being the person who gets to expose other
Speaker 1: people to something new and interesting, and the work you
Speaker 1: guys do is quite fascinating. I actually have lots and
Speaker 1: lots of Jim Simon's stories, most of which I won't
Speaker 1: share on the air, but I could share one, which
Speaker 1: is I went to Stony Brook and undergraduate. I started
Speaker 1: out anyway as applied mathematics and physics. And when I
Speaker 1: was getting a tour of the university when I was
Speaker 1: still in high school, I want to say, this was
Speaker 1: like seventy seven or seventy eight. You get a tour
Speaker 1: of the math department, or at least in the tour,
Speaker 1: there's the math department, and there's this guy standing outside
Speaker 1: chain smoking a cigarette with this sort of scraggly beard,
Speaker 1: and I just remember thinking, who the hell is that, um?
Speaker 1: And then you know, and there's the head of our
Speaker 1: mathematics department, Jim Simons. I recall looking at him and thinking,
Speaker 1: this guy is lucky he's an academic because if he
Speaker 1: ever went into finance, no one would give this guy
Speaker 1: a dime, which is which is pretty hilarious considering how
Speaker 1: spectacular the track record of renaissance technolo pologies Um has been.
Speaker 1: I have other stories, but he definitely has an adventurous
Speaker 1: spirit and he's such a code breaker. Just an amazing background, right,
Speaker 1: so smart and and so many interests. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: is modern day um, you know, um renaissance man. He
Speaker 1: really is. And and the fact that he said says
Speaker 1: to himself. I'm gonna put together a hedge fund, but
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it in New York and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do in Granwich, Connecticut. I'm gonna do it
Speaker 1: out in he's there and needs to talk it. Um,
Speaker 1: I've never been out there. I mean, I know the area,
Speaker 1: it's past Stony Brook. And I'm not gonna do it
Speaker 1: with traditional Wall Street people. I'm just gonna hire mathematicians
Speaker 1: and physicists and computer programmers. I think that's the most
Speaker 1: fascinating story in um in finance, just yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: Wall Street is doing is interesting, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it this way and and has been tremendously successful.
Speaker 1: So it's it's so able to do the work that
Speaker 1: we do because of it. It's in credibly inspiring that
Speaker 1: someone could say the mainstream approach is not where my
Speaker 1: strength lay and I'm going to do it this way
Speaker 1: and it ends up being wildly successful. It's it's you
Speaker 1: gotta love a story like that. It's fascinating, So I
Speaker 1: know I only have you for for a short period
Speaker 1: of time. There were one or two questions we missed
Speaker 1: that I wanna get to before I get to my
Speaker 1: my favorite um questions. I know we we talked about
Speaker 1: how long it could take to write a story, But
Speaker 1: when you're trying to figure out, hey, will this make
Speaker 1: for a good piece, what what goes into that calculus? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's a combination of things. One is that
Speaker 1: we want to make sure that what we're covering is
Speaker 1: uh some of the most important and and perceived that
Speaker 1: way by the research community. Itself important ideas that well
Speaker 1: then lead to new other ideas and it's really pushing
Speaker 1: things forward. So one thing is that. Another is that
Speaker 1: you know, we do want to cover again attempts to
Speaker 1: answer some of the big fundamental questions that really is
Speaker 1: ultimately what we're about at Quanta. I think that's what
Speaker 1: I feel is a draw to anybody out there, whether
Speaker 1: you have a science or math background or not, is
Speaker 1: that you want to know where we came from, where
Speaker 1: the universe came from, what is in this universe that
Speaker 1: that we're a part of, and you know, what is
Speaker 1: reality made of? Really? And so if if you want
Speaker 1: to know these things, you have to get at some
Speaker 1: of these basic questions that the research that we cover
Speaker 1: try to answer. I don't remember if this was Quanta
Speaker 1: I read pretty broadly, but I think it was Quanta
Speaker 1: that the discussion. So we have the general theory of
Speaker 1: Big Bang, and there's a few holes in that theory.
Speaker 1: How did that giant inflationary expansion happened? Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But but some people have looked at we'll go back
Speaker 1: before the Big Bang, and I recall reading I hope
Speaker 1: I'm not getting this wrong. Someone had written a theoretical
Speaker 1: physics piece that said that the idea of nothingness is
Speaker 1: inherently unstable, and so you can't have nothingness forever because
Speaker 1: eventually nothingness will just vomit out a universe. Because on
Speaker 1: a human level, we understand what nothing this is, but
Speaker 1: on a I can't even say galactic within the broad universe,
Speaker 1: having absolutely nothing is just unbalanced and unstable and can't
Speaker 1: be sustained for trillions of years. What was that a
Speaker 1: quantity piece? So there there we did do a story
Speaker 1: that looked at some new ideas. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: in cosmology where you know, there's a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: that something like cosmic inflation happened, right, Um, Although there
Speaker 1: are questions as to whether there was really just one
Speaker 1: Big Bang or whether there's more of a cyclic kind
Speaker 1: of thing going on, or more of a big bounce,
Speaker 1: right where things are expanding and then they end up
Speaker 1: contracting and then they bounce and you had another inflationary period,
Speaker 1: and you know, things kind of go in that way
Speaker 1: because because there was a you know, just one and
Speaker 1: if there was nothing before that, then we'll eventually the
Speaker 1: universe will eventually do. And what even entropy? What even
Speaker 1: that the the initial ingredients to to to lead to
Speaker 1: the inflation of the universe. Right, So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of questions that are hard to answer um with with
Speaker 1: the existing knowledge. Just wait a few trillion years and
Speaker 1: we'll have all the answers. Yes, we either that or
Speaker 1: we love nothing. That's exactly right. So let me get
Speaker 1: to some of my favorite questions that I asked all
Speaker 1: my guests. Um, let's jump right into it. Tell us
Speaker 1: the most important thing that we don't know about Thomas Lynn. Wow. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see, you do probably do not know that. In
Speaker 1: when I was twenty, I wrote a bicycle across the
Speaker 1: United States of America. Really, I have a friend who
Speaker 1: did that. What was that? Like? That was amazing? We
Speaker 1: were young, We did not know what we were doing.
Speaker 1: It was a group. No, it's just a friend and
Speaker 1: I so college buddy, and either was between my junior
Speaker 1: and senior years in college. That we took those those
Speaker 1: months to ride from Oregon to New York? And how
Speaker 1: long did the most amazing thing? Uh? It took about
Speaker 1: two months? Mm hmm? And where are you sleeping? How
Speaker 1: how you eating? Was? We? We went a whole hog
Speaker 1: in terms of just putting everything that we needed to
Speaker 1: live on the bicycles themselves. We had about fifty sixty
Speaker 1: pounds of gear in our panniers in the front and
Speaker 1: the back, over the front and back wheels and everything
Speaker 1: we needed from the tent sleeping bags to a cook
Speaker 1: stove that we went to the gas station to pay
Speaker 1: five cents to get a little bit of gas to
Speaker 1: to cook our meals. Everything we needed and clothing and
Speaker 1: food and everything was in those bags and we had
Speaker 1: quite an adventure. How long did this take? This took
Speaker 1: about two months? And uh and and even counting for
Speaker 1: the extra day we spent in Yellowstone National Park and
Speaker 1: places where we wanted to sort of enjoy ourselves a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um, did you did you map it out
Speaker 1: in advance or was it just on the kind of
Speaker 1: wing on the road. Yeah. So back then, I mean
Speaker 1: back before we had I know, GB, I right, No,
Speaker 1: GB has no phones, smartphones, any of that sort of thing. Um.
Speaker 1: There was an organization called Bike Centennial that used to
Speaker 1: sell these different routes that you could take, and I
Speaker 1: think the one we took. The route we took was
Speaker 1: one of the longer ones. It was called I think
Speaker 1: the trans America Route is about four thousand miles where
Speaker 1: you went up from Oregon up to Idaho and Montana
Speaker 1: to the Rockies and then you ended up winding and
Speaker 1: going down the Rockies all the way down to Colorado.
Speaker 1: We crossed the Continental Divide like nine times, I believe,
Speaker 1: and then we started heading across the planes Kansas and
Speaker 1: back up through Missouri back to New York. That four
Speaker 1: thousand miles, That's that's impressive. Um. Tell us about your
Speaker 1: early mentors who impacted the way you looked the world
Speaker 1: of of both writing and and science. Yeah, so many mentors.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I have to really thank everybody
Speaker 1: that almost all the editors that I've worked for and
Speaker 1: with over the years, especially some of the editors at
Speaker 1: the Science Desk, former editors. Now some of them like
Speaker 1: Laura Chang was that was the desk editor at the
Speaker 1: New York the science desk editor at the New York
Speaker 1: Times when I was there. Jim Gorman was Science Times
Speaker 1: editor at the time. David Corkrane. So many of these
Speaker 1: editors helped shape me as a writer and editor and
Speaker 1: also thinking about the best ways to communicate science to
Speaker 1: the public. So let's talk about your favorite books, be
Speaker 1: they fiction, non fiction, science or not. What do you like?
Speaker 1: I read a lot of different things, more recent books
Speaker 1: would see. Right now, I'm reading viet Ton When's book
Speaker 1: The Sympathizer, which I think a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: when the Pulitzer to be as a fictional novel about
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. I also recently read TV Stroke Guests
Speaker 1: just published a new book called Infinite Powers. It's about calculus.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Whether you like calculus or whether you hate it,
Speaker 1: you will love the book and you will learn things
Speaker 1: that you never knew you uh could, or or that
Speaker 1: you wanted to. But you will be uh uh so
Speaker 1: uh happy that you did. Wow, that's fascinat. Give us,
Speaker 1: give us one more book. Okay, wow, so uh you
Speaker 1: know what those are more recent books going all the
Speaker 1: way back. I was maybe two quick books that in
Speaker 1: terms of my all time favorites. One is The Kingdom
Speaker 1: and the Power by Gate to least, it's about the
Speaker 1: New York Times during that era decades ago, about how
Speaker 1: it served as both the fourth Estate as a publication,
Speaker 1: but also the internal machinations and the politics and the
Speaker 1: the internal sort of struggles within the newsroom itself. And
Speaker 1: it gives you a really really good insight into how
Speaker 1: a major newspaper like The Times came to be and
Speaker 1: operate the other and you were there, so did ring
Speaker 1: read very very much fundings that decades later, I was
Speaker 1: there and still many of the same general themes existed,
Speaker 1: and it was really fascinating to read be reading the
Speaker 1: book while also living it. Uh there And the other
Speaker 1: book I would say that's one of my all time
Speaker 1: favorites is The Peloponnesian War by Thucydities. It's about um,
Speaker 1: the conflict between UH, the Greeks, UM and UH and
Speaker 1: and the Spartan Um back you know many centuries UH
Speaker 1: and and UH and it you know to me that
Speaker 1: that gets at some of the universal aspects of human nature,
Speaker 1: of societies, of why we get into conflicts and why
Speaker 1: we fight these wars. So, if a millennial or recent
Speaker 1: college grad came up to you and said they were
Speaker 1: thinking about a career in either science or math journalism,
Speaker 1: what sort of advice might you give them? You know,
Speaker 1: I would say, Um, find a place and people uh
Speaker 1: to work for and with that represent your values, that
Speaker 1: are the kind of work that you want that you
Speaker 1: see yourself doing, and at the same time be open
Speaker 1: to learning. Right. I think this is not about millennials
Speaker 1: or any particular generation. I think all young people starting out, UM,
Speaker 1: come in you know, sometimes thinking that that they have
Speaker 1: a lot of things figured out, and yet the people
Speaker 1: around you off and have a lot of experience, and
Speaker 1: especially the ones who are looking out for you and
Speaker 1: have your back. Um, you know, it's good to work
Speaker 1: with them and listen to them and try to pick
Speaker 1: up a few things, because ultimately you will be that
Speaker 1: person down the road who will hopefully be giving a
Speaker 1: lending hand to the next generation. And our final question,
Speaker 1: what is it that you know about the world of
Speaker 1: physics and science and mathematics and journalism today that you
Speaker 1: wish you knew twenty years or so ago. When you're
Speaker 1: really exploring this this area. Wow. You know what, I
Speaker 1: think I would say that I was just so new
Speaker 1: to it back you know, twenty years ago, I wasn't
Speaker 1: even thinking about journalism yet as a career, right. I
Speaker 1: think it was probably teaching at the time. Um. But
Speaker 1: I think that having gone through what I have and
Speaker 1: and having started this magazine and published these two books,
Speaker 1: I think that it feels very liberating in terms of
Speaker 1: knowing what you can build and the impact that you
Speaker 1: can create even when something doesn't currently exist that you
Speaker 1: uh want to exist, right, and so sort of thinking
Speaker 1: big and thinking, well, maybe we don't have this thing
Speaker 1: yet that in society or this publication doesn't yet exist,
Speaker 1: or at this company that you might want to start,
Speaker 1: and just having a little bit of that confidence and
Speaker 1: and putting in the elbow grease and and learning as
Speaker 1: much as you can, but having the willingness to go
Speaker 1: out and make the things that you think the world deserves.
Speaker 1: Quite fascinating. We have been speaking with Thomas Lynn. He
Speaker 1: is the editor in chief and founder of Quantum Magazine
Speaker 1: as well was the editor of two recent publications. The
Speaker 1: first is The Prime Number of Conspiracy and the second
Speaker 1: is Alice and Bob Meet the Wall of Fire, both
Speaker 1: of which are discussing the biggest ideas in science and mathematics.
Speaker 1: If you've enjoyed this conversation, well be sure and looks
Speaker 1: up an Inch or down an Inch on Apple iTunes
Speaker 1: and you can see any of the other two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty or so such conversations we've had with people
Speaker 1: over the past five years. UH. You can also find
Speaker 1: the rest of our UM archives at Stitcher, Overcast, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, wherever you find your favorite podcasts. We
Speaker 1: love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at
Speaker 1: m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. If you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: this conversation, go to Apple iTunes, give us a five
Speaker 1: star review and tell us why you like this. If
Speaker 1: you don't like this, we'll send me an email and
Speaker 1: I'll i'll respond personally. I would be remiss if I
Speaker 1: did not mention the crack staff that helps put together
Speaker 1: this conversation each week. Medina Parwana is my engineer slash producer,
Speaker 1: as well as a conscience of Generation UM. Taylor Riggs
Speaker 1: is our booker. Attika val Brunn is our project manager.
Speaker 1: My Kilbatnick is my head of research. I'm Barry Ritolts.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio