Tim Palmer: The Primacy of Doubt
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- Опубликовано: 2 фев 2023
- Tim Palmer graduated from Oxford with a PhD in mathematical physics, working on general relativity, and got a postdoc to work with Stephen Hawking. He turned it down and moved into the field of meteorology, and then moved on to Climate Change studies, where he pioneered the development of what is called ‘ensemble forecasting’ to predict both long term climate change, as well as short term weather predictions. This technique has now become a standard in the field, and is necessary to properly account for possible chaotic behavior in atmospheric systems.
Even simple classical systems can be chaotic-implying that even minute changes in initial conditions can sometimes produce dramatic variations in their later evolution. The canonical hyperbolic example is a butterfly flapping its wings in Kansas might later cause a violent storm on the Eastern Seaboard.
On first glance, it may seem that this would imply all predictivity must go out the window, but over the past 40 years techniques have been developed for dealing with the so-called ‘fractal’ distributions that often result from chaotic dynamics, and as a result, it has become possible to constrain the range of possible long term outcomes of chaotic behavior.
Tim Palmer has recently written a new book, entitled The Primacy of Doubt, which provides a wonderful discussion about the importance of accounting for doubt and uncertainty in a wide variety of systems, from weather to medicine, and even includes discussions of there possible implications of his ideas for the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and gravity. While I am more skeptical of his nevertheless intriguing latter arguments, Tim and I had a fascinating and informative discussion about his own experiences as a scientist, and the importance of explicitly incorporating a range of initial conditions when exploring weather and climate predictions.
For many people, uncertainty is something to be avoided, but in physics, uncertainty is an inherent part of our understanding of the world, and it must be faced head-on. Being able to make quantitative predictions with likelihoods that have meaning requires it, and science is the only area of human inquiry where we can state with great quantitative accuracy what the likelihood is that a given prediction will be correct. This is a triumph of the scientific process and deserves to be better understood. In this regard, there are fewer better guides than Tim Palmer, and it was a delight to spend time with him on this podcast, which will enlighten and entertain.
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The Origins Podcast, a production of The Origins Project Foundation, features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world about the issues that impact all of us in the 21st century. Host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, will be joined by guests from a wide range of fields, including science, the arts, and journalism. The topics discussed on The Origins Podcast reflect the full range of the human experience - exploring science and culture in a way that seeks to entertain, educate, and inspire.
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Lawrence is awesome, but he gets so excited that he asks these long and winding questions and the interlocutor can hardly get a word in edge wise.
Yes. Very annoying.
@@JamesFitzgerald
Sounds like me and the rest of us.
As we are due some extreme typhoon or something i dont think any knowledge of it and its damaging effects will alter this fact
Would be nice hear more from the guest, that apart love the podcast.
L. talks way too much.
While I like this podcast very much and this episode in particular was of high quality, I think it is essential that the guest does most of the talking. In this case, an important part of this episode was Dr. Tim Palmer's recently published book "The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World." I think it would have been better for Dr. Palmer to offer his own views on a number of the (introductory/motivating) explanations given by the host as well as to have some input on the direction the discussions took.
Palmer's strangely unpopular advocacy of determinism is refreshing.
why doesnt Krauss allow the guest to speak?
Very frustrating for sure.
He gets a bit excited and takes too long to make his point before letting the guest speak. He knows he does that.
He's taking interviewing lessons from Sam harris.
I want to know what kinda of moisturizer he uses….68🤔
A loud American talking with a mild mannered Brit.
37:00 i was living in 'the avenue' surbiton (kingston, south london, uk) at the time - famous for a tv series called "the good life" about self sufficiency. several cars were crushed by trees just in that street, i remember watching silver birches in the house opposite swaying like palm trees in a hurricane the night before.
I did a PhD in Particle Physics in the late 1980’s and became convinced that String Theory was a dead end. I then did a Diploma of Meteorology and worked for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
An opportunity arose to spend a year in the UK at the European Weather Centre in Reading, I was working in a different group to Tim Palmer, but I did have interesting conversations with Tim over morning tea.
Particle physics; humbug, put the pieces back together and leave the weather alone.
You took off to the UK because you were the one who caused the floods and fires in Australia? Your daylight saving faded my curtains confused the chickens, and because the rooster couldn't tell night from day, he got a boyfriend. Your gang have too much control.
I first saw Dr.Palm with TimMau a few weeks ago. Huge fan now , thank your for expanding my mind to actually understand the significance of “The moons of Jupiter”. Thanks for the great talk gents !!!
Amazing interview.
LOVE this Channel 💗
always enjoy listening sir!
Dr Lawrence! Dig it. Thanks
thanks for this recommendation! I probably wouldn't have known about the book if it wasn't for the Origins podcast. now I've read the book and I was even lucky enough to see Tim Palmer's lecture at the Royal Institution :)) (I wish I could also attend a Lawrence Krauss event someday ^^)
the book definitely introduced me to some new interesting ideas. We are going to discuss the intrinsic intermittent unpredictability of some processes at our meetup soon.
I must say, I have some doubts about presenting the Invariant Set theory in a popular book. This is way too technical for the general reader, like me. In this case, I feel that it would be better to first reach a greater consensus among professionals on a new groundbreaking theory.
Like so many other people who are fans of Dr. Krauss have commented, I too would have liked for him to speak less and ask questions that would allow the interviewee to speak. Otherwise why have them on the show? Why interview them at all?
😇🇵🇭 Greetings from Manila, Everyone! 🇵🇭😇
Fascinating that Tim seems to be drilling down into casualty.
Is it possible that the three body problem on a universal scale could account for the fact that matter and anti matter did not destroy one another at the big bang?
I am more interested in the sum total instead of the world through the lense of a microscope
Lawrence as if there was nothing better to do at 6 am gmt than to watch. There wasn't.
wow ! I immediately clicked this after I woke up ! ahahha
One man show. Why had the guest even been invited if he couldn’t speak?
Sssshhhhhhh Ears are sensitive with the "Game of One upmanship".
If only guests were actually allowed to talk in Krauss's self-absorbed monologue podcast..
Uncertainty! what will happen if humans survived for the next thousands of years and figured out how to control uncertainty in both weather forecasting and quantum mechanics? will they keep the same understanding of so-called uncertainty?!
Compartmentalized control for steady unrevolutionary profit. See HR. :D
I wish the facilitator talks less and gives the time to Tim to tell more.
So difficult to parse what LK says w all his stuttering and repeating of half finished sentences. Am sure the show would have been over in 30 minutes if only he could spit his words out.
I adore Lawrence and could listen to just him talking for hours, but I felt awkward for Tim. Lawrence took up 90% of the speaking time, he kept just reading Tim’s book back to him and telling Tim his own beliefs/opinions. Lawrence shouldn’t be telling the audience Tim’s thoughts, he should be asking tim the right questions for him to tell us in his own words.
I felt Tim get kind of frustrated after a while… “right. Hmm. Yeah. Right. Right. Right, right. Yeah. Hmm” just so awkward
Why can't he just let his guests talk?
I think more and more advances in science will come from cross-discipline collaborations
interviewer > 90% of talking time, interviewee < 10% of talking time !!
Lawrence, we like you a lot, now be quiet.
Let your guest talk. Stop interrupting.
Palmer was great with Michael Shermer. But scientists are not usually the best hosts/interviewers, they love to talk too much....
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ talk talk talk talk talk guess who is in love with their own narcissistic output ❤❤❤❤❤
LESS QUANTUM.....More Chaos.....Lawrence - again you talk too much.
Science is the only way to reach the truth, but be open-minded to change and improve your approach not to make something similar to gang in the field of science.that cares about its own interests not in science itself.
I get my divine inspiration from Zeus and regular recaffeination.
Lawrence is a WEIRDO
He's not at all weird. He's just uber verbal. Can't help himself. Shame, he needs to manage himself better and be much more accommodating to his guest.