In this episode, I’m speaking with early universe cosmologist Islam Khan. We talk about inflation theory, the multiverse, dark matter, and so much more! Is there such a thing as a parallel universe? Do we know why the universe has stretched? What does a cosmologist do for fun? 

• (0:00:50 ) What does a Cosmologist do? 


• (0:01:48 ) Islam Khan's journey into studying cosmology


• (0:04:50 ) The Infinite Universe vs The Observable Universe 


• (0:06:30 ) The Milky Way in the cosmic web


• (0:07:50 ) The scale of the Observable Universe


• (0:09:30 ) Are we alone out here? The possibility of alien life


• (0:11:50 ) The Inflation Theory - our stretchy Universe


• (0:12:45 ) How do we know it stretched?


• (0:13:30 ) The painting analogy 


• (0:14:35 ) How the Inflation Theory explains these problems


• (0:15:52 ) Multiverses: a consequence of inflation. What are they?


• (0:16:32 ) Max Tegmark - defining the four levels


• (0:17:55 ) Level 1: Inflation fields, Quantum Fields and the Higgs Boson


• (0:19:24 ) Level 2: Bubbles of Universes 


• (0:20:02 ) Level 3: The Many Worlds Theory


• (0:22:10 ) Level 4: An Abstract view: Changing the laws of physics


• (0:23:30 ) Do doppelgangers actually exist? 


• (0:24:20 ) Wave Function Collapse - Schrödinger's cat and Hugh Everett's theory 


• (0:26:03 ) Are we just a simulation? 


• (0:27:25 ) What caused the inflation? The ball and the hill 


• (0:29:10 ) Reheating the Universe 


• (0:30:25 ) Unifying Inflation Theory and dark energy/dark matter


• (0:31:45 ) The Theory of Everything


• (0:32:45 ) The real world applications - answering the big questions


• (0:34:46 ) The second stretching phase - what's happening now


• (0:35:50 ) Einstein's Cosmological Constant


• (0:37:35 ) Accelerated Expansion and Earth


• (0:40:00 ) Particle Cosmology - not just math


• (0:41:15 ) The Philosophical side


• (0:42:38 ) The Anthropic Principle


• (0:43:25 ) Evidence over opinion - why we can't all get along 


• (0:44:45 ) Working together - you need more than Theorists to make a theory


• (0:46:25 ) Exciting advances in research today! Stepping on Mars! New particles and more!


• (0:49:15 ) Islam Khan's interests; soccer, guitar and travel


• (0:52:25 ) Science and the arts - is there a link?


• (0:54:15 ) Conversations and discussions - other fields of interest 


• (0:56:20 ) Research is the dream

Follow Islam Khan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KhanCosmologist
Islam Khan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/islam-khan-001915/

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