245 - Leonard Susskind: String Theory and the Black Hole War

Leonard Susskind is Felix Block Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Along with other accomplishments, he is among the fathers of such revolutionary concepts in physics as string theory, black hole complementarity, the holographic principle, and the string-theoretic landscape. He was also the guest on episode #217, where he and Robinson discussed the fine-tuning problem and the physics of the multiverse. In this episode, Leonard and Robinson get into another topic—black holes and the information paradox. More particularly, they talk about important figures like Stephen Hawking and Gerard ’t Hooft, singularities, chaos, whether the cosmos is a hologram, the end of the universe, and more. For further details, check out Leonard’s book on the title: The Black Hole War (Back Bay Books, 2009).

The Black Hole War: https://a.co/d/3eTOHoZ

The Theoretical Minimum: https://theoreticalminimum.com

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

05:21 Black Holes and the War Between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

11:18 Is The Singularity at the Heart of a Black Hole Real?

21:51 Demystifying the Puzzle of Quantum Information

28:27 What Does The Famous Phrase “It From Bit” Mean?

38:47 Can Information Be Stored on the Surface of a Black Hole?

47:11 Was Stephen Hawking a Good Physicist?

56:21 How Will The Universe End?

1:00:49 What Is the Black Hole Information Paradox?

1:10:47 What Is the Holographic Principle?

1:20:01 How Leonard Susskind Won the Black Hole War Against Stephen Hawking

1:25:09 What Is the Infamous AdS/CFT Correspondence?

1:32:29 Is Physics in a Deep Crisis?

1:39:29 Are String and M-Theory Totally Wrong?

1:43:05 Is String Theory the Theory of Everything?

1:47:43 Is String Theory a Failure?

1:50:15 Does Our World Have Extra Dimensions?

1:53:34 Could Our World Be a Hologram?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.