Antonio Padilla & Michio Kaku: A Conversation

Antonio Padilla is a leading theoretical physicist and cosmologist at the University of Nottingham. In 2016, he and his team shared the Buchalter Cosmology Prize for their work on the cosmological constant. He is also a star of the Numberphile YouTube network, where one of his most popular videos has been viewed more than 8 million times. In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. These numbers include Graham’s number, TREE(3), whose finite nature can never be definitively proved, and 10^{-120}, measuring the mystery of our unexpected universe. Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant, which says that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Fantastic Numbers combines popular and cutting-edge science in a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental truths about the universe.

Michio Kaku is the author of several science books, including Beyond Einstein, The Future of Humanity, The Future of the Mind, Hyperspace, Physics of the Future, and Physics of the Impossible. A co-founder of string field theory, Kaku is also the science correspondent for CBS This Morning, the host of the radio programs Science Fantastic and Exploration, and a host of several science-focused TV specials for the BBC and the Discovery and Science channels. The God Equation: The Quest for the Theory of Everything (Anchor) explores the quest for the holy grail of physics that would explain the creation of the universe. Since Newton discovered the law of gravity, physicists have been placing new forces into ever-grander theories. But perhaps the ultimate challenge is synthesizing the two remaining theories – relativity and quantum theory. This would be the crowning achievement of science, a magnificent equation to unlock its deepest mysteries: What happened before the Big Bang? What lies on the other side of a black hole? Are there other universes and dimensions? Is time travel possible? Why are we here? And what’s at stake is nothing less than our conception of the universe.

Sheyum Syed is an associate professor of physics at the University of Miami.