One of humankind’s most enduring and exciting mysteries is the origin of our universe. For most of history, we could only look up to the skies and speculate on how the world came into existence. Now, modern technology has given us astonishing insight into the universe’s beginnings, inspiring groundbreaking new theories. But what if all this knowledge has only produced deeper, philosophical questions about the world’s oldest question?

Renata Kallosh, a leading theoretical physicist at Stanford, spends her days peering into the early universe searching for the elusive theory of quantum gravity. In this episode of the Stanford SciCast, Micah and Jiren talk to Kallosh about what cosmology and physics can tell us about the origins of the universe, and what scientists hope to find in the future.

Next, Stanford philosopher of science Thomas Ryckman tells us about the challenges faced by those trying answering the deepest questions about the world. It turns out that trying to understand every aspect of nature is forcing philosophers and physicists to turn to creative and sometimes unsatisfying answers.


This episode is an interstellar journey both backward and forward in time. Along the way, we will discover that the origins of the universe are both more complex and more beautiful than we imagined.

Image of Helix Nebula, credit to NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO)