Don Lincoln
Particle physicist at Fermilab, author and science communicator
Don Lincoln (Particle physicist at Fermilab, author and science communicator) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Dark matter, Higgs boson, Theory of everything.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Dark matter
Lincoln explains he avoids dark matter experiments because any single experiment covers only a narrow slice of the possible mass range.
“if you make an experiment that searches one mass range it'll be blind to another mass range”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:47:26
Lincoln argues that galaxies without dark matter, such as DF2 and DF4, are paradoxically strong evidence that dark matter exists.
“the existence of a galaxy with no dark matter is very strong evidence that dark matter is real because you can take the dark matter out”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:39:35
Lincoln says the Bullet Cluster changed his mind from favoring modified gravity or inertia to believing dark matter is real.
“The bullet cluster is strong evidence that dark matter is a real thing”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:39:35
Higgs boson
Lincoln recounts that Leon Lederman's book was titled The God Particle mainly because his publisher thought it would sell more copies.
“the real truth was the book was called the God particle because his publisher thought it would sell more copies”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:19:13
Lincoln considers the Higgs discovery important but not paradigm-changing like Einstein's work, calling it the last unvalidated piece of the Standard Model.
“The Higgs boson, the one thing that is true is it was the last unvalidated piece of the standard model”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:19:51
Lincoln says Fermilab would have discovered the Higgs boson with two or three more years of Tevatron running.
“if we had had another two years or maybe three years of running the Fermi accelerator, Fermilab would have discovered or ruled out, or in this case, turning out, discovered the Higgs boson”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:13:52
Theory of everything
Lincoln argues that practical progress comes from investigating concrete open questions like dark matter rather than extrapolating far beyond measurements.
“The correct way to make progress, practical progress, towards the theory of everything is to look around at the things that we don't have answers to right now”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:32:38
Lincoln argues accelerator energies grow only about sevenfold every 20 years, making the quadrillion-fold gap to unification energies enormous.
“We get something like a factor of seven increase in particle accelerator energy every 20 years. And so we have to get to a quadrillion times”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:24:27
Lincoln believes a theory of everything will not be found in his lifetime or his grandchildren's or their grandchildren's lifetimes.
“Now, this isn't a thing in my lifetime. It's not a thing in my grandchildren's lifetime or even their grandchildren's lifetime”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:23:34
Dark energy
Lincoln cautions that a recent measurement suggesting dark energy is decreasing is unconfirmed and should not yet be believed.
“there has been a recent measurement that suggests that dark energy is getting smaller. However, that is a new measurement, not confirmed”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:29:57
Lincoln describes the quantum field theory prediction of vacuum energy as 10^120 times larger than the measured dark energy.
“that number is the rather embarrassing 10 to the 120 power times. That's a one with 120 zeros after it. bigger than the measurement of dark energy”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:23:55
Antimatter
Lincoln says antimatter propulsion is an engineering rather than physics problem and that he would be shocked by a theoretical advance making production easier.
“I would be shocked if there was some new addition to the theory that made antimatter production easier”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:10:37
Lincoln calculates that Fermilab's antiproton production rate would require about a billion years to make a single gram of antimatter.
“So that means at that rate, with that facility, it would take a billion years running with very little downtime to make a single gram of antimatter”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:03:57
String theory
Lincoln thinks string theory is losing researchers because 50 years of work have not solved the problem, not because it has been falsified.
“I don't want to devote my life to something that I might not see progress forward in my lifetime”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:42:37
Lincoln says he is fairly sure superstring theory is wrong because new phenomena will appear across the vast untested energy range.
“I'm pretty sure super string theory is wrong, not because people aren't smart, but because something new is going to happen”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:32:38
Other remarks
Lincoln recounts that as a graduate student he voluntarily worked at the lab from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday.
“from Monday through Saturday, I would be at the lab voluntarily because I wanted to be from 8 a.m. to midnight”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:57:40
Baryogenesis
Lincoln would bet that neutrinos and antineutrinos oscillate at the same rate, though Fermilab is racing a Japanese group to measure it.
“So if I was going to bet the farm, I'll bet that they oscillate at the same rate. But I don't know”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 2:15:02
Loop quantum gravity
Lincoln recounts that Carlo Rovelli told him loop quantum gravity had been revised so its old frequency-dependent speed-of-light prediction no longer applies.
“I went on to say, well, let's pretty much kill loop quantum gravity only to get a prickly note from Mr. or Dr. Ravelli”
Lex Fridman Podcast: #497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln (May 29, 2026) · Listen from 1:47:17
Appearances
#497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don LincolnLex Fridman Podcast · May 29, 2026 · 3 h 2 min
Fermilab physicist Don Lincoln talks with Lex Fridman about unification in physics, the Higgs boson, string theory, antimatter, dark energy, and dark matter.
Often appears with
- Lex Fridman · 1 shared episode