#187 – Frank Wilczek: Physics of Quarks, Dark Matter, Complexity, Life & Aliens
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13.6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2021
⏱️ 150 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Prize winning physicist at MIT. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Frank’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrankWilczek
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:39) – Are there limits to what physics can understand?
(17:31) – Beautiful ideas in physics
(25:59) – Space and time are really big
(29:47) – There are billions of thoughts in a human life
(37:09) – Big bang
(45:31) – How life emerged in the universe
(51:33) – Aliens
(1:01:25) – Consciousness
(1:08:53) – Limits of physics
(1:14:29) – Complimentary principle
(1:23:34) – Free will
(1:29:47) – Particles
(1:35:10) – Nobel Prize in Physics
(1:48:24) – Axions and dark matter
(2:03:50) – Time crystals
(2:08:42) – Theory of everything
(2:18:10) – Advice for young people
(2:23:52) – Meaning of life
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Frank Wilcheck, a theoretical physicist at MIT who won |
| 0:05.6 | the Nobel Prize for the co-discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of strong interaction. |
| 0:12.3 | Quick mention of our sponsors, the information, net suite, express VPN, blinkist, and a sleep. |
| 0:20.4 | Check them out in the description to support this podcast. |
| 0:23.6 | As a side note, let me say a word about asymptotic freedom. |
| 0:26.9 | Protons and neutrons make up the nucleus of an atom. |
| 0:30.1 | Strong interaction is responsible for the strong nuclear force that binds them. |
| 0:34.3 | But strong interaction also holds together the quirks that make up the protons and neutrons. |
| 0:40.1 | Frank Wilcheck, David Gross, and David Politzer came up with a theory of postulating that |
| 0:45.4 | when quirks come really close to one another, the attraction abates and they behave like |
| 0:50.1 | free particles. |
| 0:51.5 | This is called asymptotic freedom. |
| 0:54.5 | This happens at very, very high energies, which is also where all the fun is. |
| 1:00.8 | Now we'll get to the advertisement portion of this program. |
| 1:04.9 | I'm recording it in the middle of nowhere in a deserted airport holding a microphone |
| 1:11.5 | in my hand, plugged into the wall. |
| 1:14.0 | I don't know what I'm doing. |
| 1:15.8 | There's a bit of a failure of technology that resulted in me being forced to do this |
| 1:21.3 | at the airport. |
| 1:23.0 | So let's try it out. |
| 1:24.9 | You want to skip these out? |
| 1:25.9 | There's timestamps, but you should know that it really is the best way to support this |
... |
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