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Physicist: Why I Believe in Near-Death Experiences

2026-06-09 Science & Technology
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Dr Brian Keating
Dr Brian Keating
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A practicing astrophysicist who doesn't believe in the tunnel of light, the hovering soul, or the wailing relatives — but believes in one near-death experience that changed science forever. By the end you'll believe in it too. Today on Into the Impossible: the strangest, darkest, most personal origin story behind the world's most famous prize — and what it should make you do with the time you have left. Just released — my conversation with Mayim Bialik on her pod that goes even deeper on near-death experiences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwFTWTbC5lk If you came here from Mayim's channel — welcome. Subscribe and stay for science with evidence, not speculation: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 Dr. Brian Keating is a cosmologist at UC San Diego and author of Losing the Nobel Prize. He has a personal stake in this story — and he's nominated Nobel winners twice. We cover: why a physicist takes near-death experiences seriously, the four deaths that built a fortune on nitroglycerin, the newspaper that confused two brothers and printed the wrong man's obituary, the one-page handwritten will that gave away 94% of an estate — and the wishes the Nobel Committee has quietly ignored ever since. Rosalind Franklin never won. Vera Rubin never won. That's not a footnote. CHAPTERS 00:00 A physicist who believes in near-death experiences. Why? 00:54 Four sons, one dangerous liquid 02:00 Emil dies at 20 — Alfred isn't at the factory 03:40 The inventor who died with nothing 05:16 The company that pumped half the world's oil 06:00 The newspaper prints the wrong obituary 07:04 Why the real notice is worse than the myth 09:06 Scrooge, George Bailey, and a literary near-death experience 10:40 94% of his estate, five prizes, one rule 13:00 Why Nobel cut out his own family 15:22 My BICEP announcement — and my stake in the prize 16:44 Where the Nobel Committee strayed from the will Get the transcript, fascinating bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/yt Have a .edu email and live in the USA? You automatically win a meteorite: https://BrianKeating.com/edu Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 Support Into the Impossible on Patreon — weekly M.A.G.I.C. Message, unfiltered bonus content, monthly Office Hours: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Join this channel for perks, monthly Office Hours, and your name in the Member Roster: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join My books: Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U Galileo's Dialogue (first-ever audiobook): https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un Twitter/X: https://x.com/BrianKeating Substack: https://briankeating.substack.com Blog: https://briankeating.com/blog Audio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast #intotheimpossible #briankeating #NearDeathExperience #NobelPrize #AlfredNobel #science #physics #podcast

Top Comments (10)

@zuboson 2026-06-09

Why do so many people, including respected scientists, label the possibility of alien abductions as being "paranormal"? Whether such things have really happened or not, they're not paranormal, because it would not fall outside of scientific understanding.

14 3 replies
@DrBrianKeating 2026-06-07

📜 Mayim Bialik believes in them. Dickens gave Scrooge a look at his own grave. Capra gave George Bailey a world without him. We call those fictional near-death experiences — and the point was never the ghosts or the angel. It was the part where the protagonist is still alive and can change the ending. Alfred Nobel got the real version in 1888: no spirits, just a newspaper and seven years of runway. The skeptic's objection is fair — none of this is supernatural, and Nobel never mentioned the obituary in his letters, so the causal link is inference. Granted. But the will reads like a direct answer to that notice, almost line for line. That's the only kind of near-death experience I believe in. What's the moment that made you see your own ending from the outside?

8 5 replies
@Thomas-gk42 2026-06-09

Great and interesting story and very nicely told!👌

8
@ryateo1 2026-06-09

My brother and I both served in Afghanistan. Buried many of our friends, many of near misses between us and other friends. I don't believe in this crap. I do believe it's the route within our subconscious that led us to theology

6
@strafe155 2026-06-09

Some Near Death Experiences known as "Peak in Darien Experiences" involve encounters with dead people who were still thought to be alive at the time, or were complete strangers to the experiencer. For Example, Cardiologist Pim Van Lommel from the Netherlands has documented the Near Death Experience of a Dutch man who, while undergoing cardiac arrest, encountered his dead grandmother as well as a strange man who looked at him very lovingly, but whom he couldn't recognize. Over a decade after his experience, the mans mother, who was now on her deathbed, confessed to her son that he'd actually been born from an extramarital affair, and that her husband wasn't his real father. His biological father was actually a Jewish man who'd been killed during the German Occupation of the Netherlands in World War 2. She also gave her son a photograph she had of his biological father, and he immediately recognized him as the strange man who had looked at him lovingly during his Near Death Experience over a decade prior.

4 1 replies
@nissimhadar 2026-06-12

Wonderful presentation. Thanks!!

3
@philipmaxwell669 2026-06-17

Maybe when we die we just emerge from the immersive world experience. We take off our VR gear and go about our daily alien lives. 70 years just a few minutes in real time

1
@GilesMcRiker 2026-06-11

"Betraying the wishes of those who can no longer defend themselves is a grave grave sin" pardon the pun

1
@AnOnymous-w1j5q 2026-06-12

Amen.

0
@flyinghigh372 2026-06-14

the best

0

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