Brian Keating

"Each year, on December tenth, thousands of worshippers convene in to commemorate the passing of an arms dealt known as the merchant of death. The eschatological ritual features all the rites and incantations befitting a 's funeral. Haunting dirges play as the worshippers, bedecked in mandatory regalia, mourn the merchant. He is eerily present; his visage looms over the congregants as they feast on exotic game, surrounded by fresh-cut flowers imported from the merchant's . The event culminates with the presentation of gilded, graven images bearing his likeness. This ritual is the annual award ceremony, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was an occult sacrament."

"We should be agnostic as to what the might be."

"I'm an experimentalist. I like to look at hard data. And there — string theory is a distant second to because it doesn't make any observable predictions. ... As an experimentalist, I like when a theory makes a prediction. My job is to not prove theorists right — it's to disprove everybody else."

"Friedman had suffered health problems over the years. But news of his death stunned friends and colleagues, including UCSD physicist Brian Keating, who recruited him to , and physicist-science fiction author of . The trio made up “The Three Physicists,” an informal group that periodically met to give public talks on science and philosophy. ... With Brin and Keating, he also dove into esoterica, tackling subjects such as the physics of free will."