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Lex Fridman Podcast / episode intelligence

#497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln

29 May 2026 23 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Don LincolnLex Fridman

Claim mix

uncertainty 7prediction 5evaluation 3observation 3belief 3preference 2

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The useful parts, with receipts.

23 published records

01 / evaluation

Anyways, 2012 rolls around, and like two days before the announcement at CERN was July 4th, so two days before that, Fermilab made a measurement and said, “We can rule out certain regions, but certain regions we can’t rule out. But what we know, and this is important, if the Higgs boson exists, it must be in this region for which we are not capable yet of ruling out.

“Anyways, 2012 rolls around, and like two days before the announcement at CERN was July 4th, so two days before that, Fermilab made a measurement and said, “We can rule out certain regions, but certain regions we can’t rule out. But what we know, and this is important, if the Higgs boson exists, it must be in this region for which we are not capable yet of ruling out.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

02 / observation

There was a problem, however, and the problem is that electromagnetism has an infinite range and we know that because we can see stars that are millions of light-years away.

“There was a problem, however, and the problem is that electromagnetism has an infinite range and we know that because we can see stars that are millions of light-years away.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

05 / belief

The space-time unification- … is a good warm-up as we march through the twentieth century ’cause it gets, in my view at least, weirder and weirder, even with Einstein himself.

“The space-time unification- … is a good warm-up as we march through the twentieth century ’cause it gets, in my view at least, weirder and weirder, even with Einstein himself.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

06 / observation

The universe was not only expanding, but the expansion was speeding up, and the only way that could happen, given that gravity slows it down, is there was a repulsive force, and the name we give to that repulsive force is dark energy. This is something that Einstein postulated early on in his development of general relativity, but then because at the time, he knew that his theory predicted that the universe would collapse but he believed the universe was eternal and not unchanging, and so he needed something to counterbalance that collapse, and so he invented dark energy.

“The universe was not only expanding, but the expansion was speeding up, and the only way that could happen, given that gravity slows it down, is there was a repulsive force, and the name we give to that repulsive force is dark energy. This is something that Einstein postulated early on in his development of general relativity, but then because at the time, he knew that his theory predicted that the universe would collapse but he believed the universe was eternal and not unchanging, and so he needed something to counterbalance that collapse, and so he invented dark energy.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

07 / uncertainty

Anyway, I did wanna mention, I don’t know if this is true, but I, I kind of heard you talk about this, that when you first showed up to Fermilab, you were, like, working crazy hours, working extremely hard- … eight AM to midnight.

“Anyway, I did wanna mention, I don’t know if this is true, but I, I kind of heard you talk about this, that when you first showed up to Fermilab, you were, like, working crazy hours, working extremely hard- … eight AM to midnight.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

09 / observation

Again, that hasn’t worked. So we’ve ruled out some dark matter particles, but the problem is the range of space of possible mass, if dark matter is of a particulate form, the range of viable dark matter ranges from something like the mass of an asteroid to far lighter than an electron and everywhere in between.

“Again, that hasn’t worked. So we’ve ruled out some dark matter particles, but the problem is the range of space of possible mass, if dark matter is of a particulate form, the range of viable dark matter ranges from something like the mass of an asteroid to far lighter than an electron and everywhere in between.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

10 / uncertainty

There are three different types of neutrinos like I don’t know, cats and jaguars and tigers, and if you have a beam of just cats, if you go along a little while, you find there’s cats and jaguars and then tigers, and then they’ll be back to all cats again.

“There are three different types of neutrinos like I don’t know, cats and jaguars and tigers, and if you have a beam of just cats, if you go along a little while, you find there’s cats and jaguars and then tigers, and then they’ll be back to all cats again.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

11 / uncertainty

Now, what is dark energy? I don’t know. As I said, the most common thought is that it is the energy of space itself, but it is at least conceivable that there is a field in space where space exists- … and that field is pushing space apart.

“Now, what is dark energy? I don’t know. As I said, the most common thought is that it is the energy of space itself, but it is at least conceivable that there is a field in space where space exists- … and that field is pushing space apart.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

13 / uncertainty

Whatever space is, and we don’t know what space is, but whatever it is, it has the capability of transmitting these things at that one speed through space or time, and everything else comes from our insisting that we keep space and time different.

“Whatever space is, and we don’t know what space is, but whatever it is, it has the capability of transmitting these things at that one speed through space or time, and everything else comes from our insisting that we keep space and time different.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

14 / prediction

However, there was lots of ample theoretical reasons to believe that antimatter also would fall down. So they did this fantastic measurement, and they first they put in hydrogen, and they calculated that if they did this, something like eighty percent of the hydrogen atoms would fall through the bottom of the bottle, and twenty percent would go through the top just because gravity is very weak and the atoms will escape wherever they do, but there will be a bias pulling hydrogen atoms down.

“However, there was lots of ample theoretical reasons to believe that antimatter also would fall down. So they did this fantastic measurement, and they first they put in hydrogen, and they calculated that if they did this, something like eighty percent of the hydrogen atoms would fall through the bottom of the bottle, and twenty percent would go through the top just because gravity is very weak and the atoms will escape wherever they do, but there will be a bias pulling hydrogen atoms down.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

15 / preference

There’s a reason that we venerate these people, is because it is an unusual feature, and most people only have that aha moment once in their lifetime, if they have it at all. And then there’s a tricky business because I’m sure you do, and I get a lot of letters from creative thinkers who don’t have all of the history and the mathematical discipline and the self-critique that’s necessary.

“There’s a reason that we venerate these people, is because it is an unusual feature, and most people only have that aha moment once in their lifetime, if they have it at all. And then there’s a tricky business because I’m sure you do, and I get a lot of letters from creative thinkers who don’t have all of the history and the mathematical discipline and the self-critique that’s necessary.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

16 / evaluation

Another possibility is there are various numbers of theories all under the word baryogenesis, baryo coming from the word baryon, which basically means protons, and genesis meaning the creation of, and we’d say that simply because the protons are the heaviest particles.

“Another possibility is there are various numbers of theories all under the word baryogenesis, baryo coming from the word baryon, which basically means protons, and genesis meaning the creation of, and we’d say that simply because the protons are the heaviest particles.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

17 / prediction

Now, you could say, well, gee, that went from two hundred to a hundred, so it’s getting faster. But it’s also getting harder because the unification scale is of order ten to the fifteen, which—we can do the math.

“Now, you could say, well, gee, that went from two hundred to a hundred, so it’s getting faster. But it’s also getting harder because the unification scale is of order ten to the fifteen, which—we can do the math.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

18 / preference

I mean, but that’s the point is you have these lovely, cool, interesting ideas that constantly die. And so, you know, I would love for a new nifty idea to be the idea, but I don’t know how to pick it out of the hurricane of wrong ideas.

“I mean, but that’s the point is you have these lovely, cool, interesting ideas that constantly die. And so, you know, I would love for a new nifty idea to be the idea, but I don’t know how to pick it out of the hurricane of wrong ideas.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

19 / prediction

So if there’s big clouds of gas, as the galaxies pass through one another, the clouds should interact, and the gas clouds should stop in the middle and be really, really hot. So then you would see, if there were no dark matter, you would see a cluster of galaxies, cluster of galaxies, a big gas cloud in the middle, and because the big gas cloud in the middle is much more massive than the galaxies themselves, you would expect to see distortions that we call dark matter distortions in the middle.

“So if there’s big clouds of gas, as the galaxies pass through one another, the clouds should interact, and the gas clouds should stop in the middle and be really, really hot. So then you would see, if there were no dark matter, you would see a cluster of galaxies, cluster of galaxies, a big gas cloud in the middle, and because the big gas cloud in the middle is much more massive than the galaxies themselves, you would expect to see distortions that we call dark matter distortions in the middle.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

20 / uncertainty

You know, there are things that are unknowable, like for instance, inside black holes, we don’t know what’s inside there, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not something inside there.

“You know, there are things that are unknowable, like for instance, inside black holes, we don’t know what’s inside there, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not something inside there.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

21 / prediction

And the type of science I do now, people often ask, “Well, what good is knowing about how the inside of atoms work, how the inside of quarks work?” And I don’t know the answer to that but just being a little more pragmatic, if I go back, say, a hundred years, where people were trying to understand how the protons and neutrons inside atoms held together, how they split, how they– how you could combine them and so forth, this has led to nuclear power.

“And the type of science I do now, people often ask, “Well, what good is knowing about how the inside of atoms work, how the inside of quarks work?” And I don’t know the answer to that but just being a little more pragmatic, if I go back, say, a hundred years, where people were trying to understand how the protons and neutrons inside atoms held together, how they split, how they– how you could combine them and so forth, this has led to nuclear power.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

22 / evaluation

In my opinion, and now this is Don’s opinion, but it’s probably the opinion of most of the scientific community, dark matter is likely a real thing.

“In my opinion, and now this is Don’s opinion, but it’s probably the opinion of most of the scientific community, dark matter is likely a real thing.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

23 / prediction

Then subsequently, it is hoped that at a higher energy, we will be able to blend the theory of everything together with all of the known subatomic forces, the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, and then gravity.

“Then subsequently, it is hoped that at a higher energy, we will be able to blend the theory of everything together with all of the known subatomic forces, the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, and then gravity.”
Speaker
Don Lincoln
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast
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