Scott Dodelson spent ten years on the Dark Energy Survey testing the standard model of cosmology. It passed and missed by 2.5 sigma. The Director of Fermilab’s Cosmic Physics Division on why the theory he helped build may be wrong, why nobody can find dark matter, and what it takes to change a scientific consensus. Subscribe if you want science with evidence, not speculation.Dodelson is Director of the Cosmic Physics Division at Fermilab, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and author of Modern Cosmology, the textbook a generation of cosmologists learned the field from.Lambda-CDM predicts how the early universe’s tiny fluctuations grew into the structure we see today. The Dark Energy Survey was designed to check that prediction. The answer came back two and a half sigma off. That is both the most precise measurement ever made of how the universe grew, and a crack he cannot stop looking at. His question is not whether the model is close. It is whether close is enough to trust.We get into the Sigma-8 tension and what it actually takes for a scientific community to change its mind, the Dodelson-Widrow mechanism and his 1994 proposal that sterile neutrinos produced in the early universe could constitute dark matter, and the Neptune vs. Vulcan history of getting dark matter right and wrong. Asked which of those two situations we are in now, Dodelson’s answer is: I have no idea.What you’ll hear:Why the April 24, 1992 CMB discovery may have been the only science story ever to lead the New York Times front columnThe Dodelson-Widrow mechanism: how ordinary neutrinos in the early universe may have oscillated into the dark matter we see todayWhy Brian told Neil deGrasse Tyson to his face that we have already detected dark matterWhat it means when a theory can accommodate any result and whether inflation has that problemWhy the particle physics community still does not trust cosmology’s neutrino mass measurementsWhat cosmology looks like in 2036 if Lambda-CDM breaksKilling the model is my dream.Get the transcript, fascinating bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/ytHave a .edu email and live in the USA? You automatically win a meteorite: https://BrianKeating.com/eduSubscribe: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1Support Into the Impossible on Patreon, get my weekly M.A.G.I.C. Message, unfiltered bonus content, and live monthly Office Hours with me: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeatingJoin this channel for perks, monthly Office Hours, and your name in the Member Roster at the end of every episode: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/joinFeatured Guest:Scott Dodelson Substack: https://scottdodelson.substack.com/aboutScott Dodelson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-dodelson-b6ba429/Scott Dodelson on Twitter/X: https://x.com/ScottDodelsonModern Cosmology (book): https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/monograph/9780128159484/modern-cosmologyDark Energy Survey final results: https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/news-and-results/darchives/Dodelson and Widrow 1994, Sterile neutrinos as dark matter: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9303287Previous ITI episode with Kyle Dawson on DESI: https://youtu.be/LPx4oiwGp2k?si=u_ZJWfJG5AhvBAEv My books:Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpAThink Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/03ezQFuFocus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/hi50U9UGalileo’s Dialogue (first-ever audiobook): https://a.co/d/iZPi9UnTwitter/X: https://x.com/BrianKeatingSubstack: https://briankeating.substack.comBlog: https://briankeating.com/blogAudio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast#intotheimpossible #briankeating #cosmology #darkmatter #darkenergy #physics #LambdaCDM #podcastLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices