222 | Andrew Strominger on Quantum Gravity and the Real World

222 | Andrew Strominger on Quantum Gravity and the Real World

Quantum gravity research is inspired by experiment — all of the experimental data that supports quantum mechanics, and supports general relativity — but it's only inspiration, not detailed guidance. So it's easy to "do research on quantum gravity" and get lost in a world of toy models and mathematical abstraction. Today's guest, Andrew Strominger, is a leading researcher in string theory and quantum gravity, and one who has always kept his eyes on the prize: connecting to the real world. We talk about the development of string theory, the puzzle of a positive cosmological constant, and how black holes and string theory can teach us about each other.

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Andrew Strominger received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Among his awards are the Dirac Medal, the Klein Medal, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.


Episoder(416)

255 | Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone

255 | Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone

A "Theory of Everything" is physicists' somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase for a hypothetical model of all the fundamental physical interactions. Of course, even if we had such a theory, it would tell us...

30 Okt 20231h 17min

254 | William Egginton on Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges

254 | William Egginton on Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges

It can be tempting, when first introduced to a deep concept of physics like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, to draw grand philosophical conclusions about the impossibility of knowing anything prec...

23 Okt 20231h 6min

253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation

253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation

David Deutsch is one of the most creative scientific thinkers working today, who has as a goal to understand and explain the natural world as best we can. He was a pioneer in quantum computing, and ha...

16 Okt 20231h 42min

AMA | October 2023

AMA | October 2023

Welcome to the October 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pat...

9 Okt 20232h 58min

252 | Hannah Ritchie on Keeping Hope for the Planet Alive

252 | Hannah Ritchie on Keeping Hope for the Planet Alive

Our planet and its environment are in bad shape, in all sorts of ways. Those of us who want to improve the situation face a dilemma. On the one hand, we have to be forceful and clear-headed about how ...

2 Okt 20231h 15min

251 | Rosemary Braun on Uncovering Patterns in Biological Complexity

251 | Rosemary Braun on Uncovering Patterns in Biological Complexity

Biological organisms are paradigmatic emergent systems. That atoms of which they are made mindlessly obey the local laws of physics; even cells and organs do their individual jobs without explicitly u...

25 Sep 20231h 11min

250 | Brendan Nyhan on Navigating the Information Ecosystem

250 | Brendan Nyhan on Navigating the Information Ecosystem

The modern world inundates us with both information and misinformation. What are the forces that conspire to make misinformation so prevalent? Can we combat the flow of misinformation, perhaps by lega...

18 Sep 202357min

249 | Peter Godfrey-Smith on Sentience and Octopus Minds

249 | Peter Godfrey-Smith on Sentience and Octopus Minds

The study of cognition and sentience would be greatly abetted by the discovery of intelligent alien beings, who presumably developed independently of life here on Earth. But we do have more than one d...

11 Sep 20231h 28min

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