#468 – Janna Levin: Black Holes, Wormholes, Aliens, Paradoxes & Extra Dimensions
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2025
⏱️ 187 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep468-sc
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Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/janna-levin-transcript
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EPISODE LINKS:
Janna's X: https://x.com/JannaLevin
Janna's Website: https://jannalevin.com
Janna's Instagram: https://instagram.com/jannalevin
Janna's Substack: https://substack.com/@jannalevin
Black Hole Survival Guide (book): https://amzn.to/3YkJzT5
Black Hole Blues (book): https://amzn.to/42Nw7IE
How the Universe Got Its Spots (book): https://amzn.to/4m5De8k
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines (book): https://amzn.to/3GGakvd
SPONSORS:
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) - Introduction
(00:51) - Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(09:21) - Black holes
(16:55) - Formation of black holes
(27:45) - Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb
(34:08) - Inside the black hole
(47:10) - Supermassive black holes
(50:39) - Physics of spacetime
(53:42) - General relativity
(59:13) - Gravity
(1:15:47) - Information paradox
(1:24:17) - Fuzzballs & soft hair
(1:27:28) - ER = EPR
(1:34:07) - Firewall
(1:42:59) - Extra dimensions
(1:45:24) - Aliens
(2:01:00) - Wormholes
(2:11:57) - Dark matter and dark energy
(2:22:00) - Gravitational waves
(2:34:08) - Alan Turing and Kurt Godel
(2:46:23) - Grigori Perelman, Andrew Wiles, and Terence Tao
(2:52:58) - Art and science
(3:02:37) - The biggest mystery
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Jana Levin, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist |
| 0:05.7 | specializing in black holes, cosmology of extra dimensions, topology of the universe, |
| 0:11.4 | and gravitational waves in space time. She has also written some incredible books, including |
| 0:18.0 | how the universe got its spots on the topic of the shape and the size of the |
| 0:22.1 | universe, a madman dreams of touring machines on the topic of genius, madness, and the limits |
| 0:28.9 | of knowledge, black hole blues, and other songs from outer space, on the topic of |
| 0:35.9 | LIGO and the detection of gravitational waves and |
| 0:40.0 | Black Hole Survival Guide all about black holes. This was a fun and fascinating conversation. |
| 0:50.7 | And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. |
| 0:55.2 | It's the best way to support this podcast. |
| 0:57.3 | We've got Brain FM for Focus, Better Health, for Mental Health, NetSuite for your business, |
| 1:03.7 | Shopify for selling stuff, and the AG1 for your health. |
| 1:07.9 | Choose wise and my friends. |
| 1:09.6 | I do these longer ad reviews up in the beginning. I try to |
| 1:12.1 | make them interesting, but I do also make it super easy to skip with timestamps on screen and |
| 1:17.2 | in the description. I do, however, try to make them personal, often related to stuff I'm reading |
| 1:23.4 | or thinking about. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, for whatever reason, go to Lexfrewman.com slash contact. |
| 1:30.4 | And now, onto the full ad reads, let's go. |
| 1:34.3 | This episode is brought to you by brain.fm, |
| 1:37.2 | a platform that offers music specially made for focus. |
| 1:42.2 | And when I say music, I mean audio experience. |
| 1:46.2 | If you ever see me out in the wild, like a Starbucks, |
... |
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