The Equation That Changed How Physicists Think About Reality | Juan Maldacena
5/7/202641 min
Juan Maldacena is a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study whose 1997 paper remains the most cited in the history of theoretical physics. We cover: -why wormholes and quantum entanglement may be the same thing -what actually happens to information when you throw something into a black hole -the reason Hawking radiation accidentally gave cosmologists the equation that explains why the universe has structure -whether science-fiction wormholes are ruled out by the laws of physics -the one unsolved problem Juan says matters more than black holes. The most important problem in quantum gravity is understanding the beginning of the Big Bang — not black holes. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 What If Einstein's Two Strangest Ideas Were One? 01:15 Juan Maldacena: The Most Cited Physicist Alive 03:25 What Would Einstein Most Want to Know Today? 07:45 The Holographic Principle Explained 09:20 What Happens When You Throw a Laptop Into a Black Hole? 11:00 Is Information Actually Lost Forever? 12:25 The Problem Juan Wants to Solve Before He Dies 13:50 Why Real Black Holes Don't Emit Hawking Radiation 15:25 How Black Hole Physics Accidentally Explained the Universe 17:00 Could Primordial Black Holes Be Dark Matter? 18:30 Real Observers Solving Imaginary Problems 21:15 Why Imaginary Numbers Keep Being Right 25:00 The Origin Story of AdS/CFT 27:05 Do We Actually Live in AdS Space? 29:00 Are Wormholes Real or Just Science Fiction? 32:10 Could AI Have Helped Einstein? 33:00 Can Science and Religion Coexist? ——— 📬 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 — get my weekly M.A.G.I.C. Message, unfiltered bonus content, and live monthly Office Hours with me: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating ⭐ Join this channel for perks, monthly Office Hours, and your name in the Member Roster at the end of every episode: 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 🌐 More: 🏄♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating ✍️ Blog: https://briankeating.com/blog 🎙️ Audio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast #intotheimpossible #briankeating #science #physics #astronomy #cosmology #podcast #universe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsBrian Keating· Host0:00
What if Einstein's two strangest ideas, wormholes and quantum entanglement, were the same idea? My guest today spent his career proving that they are.
Juan Maldacena· Guest0:08
The so-called Einstein-Rosen paper on the fact that the full Schwarzschild solution contains two black holes that are connected, and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper that talks about entanglement, and we now think that these two things are related.
Brian Keating· Host0:21
My guest is Juan Maldacena, the physicist who in 1997 wrote the most cited paper in theoretical physics. The claim he just made, that wormholes and entanglement are the same thing, is called ER equals EPR. If he's right, the structure of spacetime is built out of quantum information itself.
Juan Maldacena· Guest0:38
The information of the things you threw in is contained in this radiation. According to general relativity, it would look like the information is lost. According to quantum mechanics, we would expect it to be preserved. So there's a conflict between the two things. Quantum matter didn't obey this property, then you would be allowed to send signals faster than the speed of light. I think this is a beautiful consistency condition between the two theories.
Brian Keating· Host0:56
He also told me which problem in physics he'd most like to solve before he dies. The answer was not what I expected.
Juan Maldacena· Guest1:03
The most important problem in quantum gravity is to understand the beginning of the Big Bang. That's really the problem that I would like most strongly to solve.
Brian Keating· Host1:10
Juan Maldacena, welcome to UC San Diego for your second appearance on the podcast.
Juan Maldacena· Guest1:13
Yeah, thank you, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here.
Brian Keating· Host1:15
You're here giving the Dashen lecture all the way from the Institute for Advanced Study, which I think is on Einstein Lane. Is that correct?
Juan Maldacena· Guest1:22
Yeah, that's right.
Brian Keating· Host1:22
The address is- Yeah, yeah ... I'm not doxing you, right- Yeah ... to say you're on one Einstein Lane, here's Einstein over here.
Juan Maldacena· Guest1:26
Yeah.
Brian Keating· Host1:27
What do you think he'd be, you know, kind of most interested to