Juan Maldacena: Geometry as Entanglement, and the Emergence of Spacetime

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Physics, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

SPONSORS: - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE Juan Maldacena wrote the most cited paper in theoretical physics, birthing AdS/CFT and realizing holography — and today, the problem keeping him up at night is wormholes. He suspects space-time isn't fundamental at all, that geometry itself might be what entanglement looks like from the inside. The singularity isn't a place, it's a name for everything we don't yet understand. I hope you enjoy it. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Emergent Space-Time Geometry - 00:05:28 - GR and QM Incompatibility - 00:11:52 - The Singularity Problem - 00:17:00 - Extremal Black Hole Thermodynamics - 00:22:00 - The Island Formula - 00:27:30 - Spacetime and Quantum Information - 00:34:15 - ER equals EPR - 00:41:51 - Traversable Wormhole Physics - 00:47:24 - Simulating Wormholes with Qubits - 00:52:53 - Celestial Holography and Symmetries - 00:58:00 - dS/CFT and Dark Energy - 01:04:24 - Quantum Error Correction Codes - 01:10:00 - The Physicist’s Mindset - 01:15:19 - Inflationary Gravity Wave Predictions - 01:21:03 - Clocks and Emergent Time - 01:26:44 - Is Space-Time Doomed? - 01:32:00 - AI in Theoretical Physics - 01:38:00 - Overcoming Academic Inadequacy LINKS MENTIONED: - Juan Maldacena's Website: https://www.ias.edu/sns/malda - Large N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9711200 - Eternal Black Holes in AdS [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0106112 - Holographic Derivation of Entanglement Entropy [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0603001 - Real Observers Solving Imaginary Problems [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14014 - Building Spacetime with Quantum Entanglement [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1005.3035 - Entropy of Bulk Quantum Fields [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.08762 - Entanglement Wedge Reconstruction [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.08255 - Comments on the Double Cone Wormhole [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11617 - Traversable Wormholes in Four Dimensions [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04726 - JT Gravity as a Matrix Integral [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11115 - Single-Minus Gluon Tree Amplitudes [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12176 - Bulk Locality and Quantum Error Correction [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.7041 - Black Hole Information Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox - Chilloquium 2023 [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/Ow81IJyzmUQ - Erik Verlinde [TOE]: https://youtu.be/ilVImMHcr_g - Leonard Susskind [TOE]: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok - Edward Frenkel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/RX1tZv_Nv4Y More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	One holes are a bit like leaky pipes.
0:02.0	Not everything is fitting together.
0:03.0	The singularity is not a place inside the black hole.
0:06.0	It's a place in the future.
0:07.0	I think it's common.
0:08.0	Maybe not to feel good,
0:10.0	and to feel that maybe you're not good enough.
0:12.0	But well, eventually you'll make your contributions.
0:16.0	Professor Juan Maldesana has spent 30 years
0:20.0	probing deeper and deeper into what the heck space-time is.
0:23.6	In this episode, we explore how it comes down to the claim that geometry, in some cases, is what entanglement looks like from the inside.
0:32.6	Today we discuss what ER equals EPR actually means, and we discuss black hole interiors, where
0:39.5	singularity is just the name for things we don't understand. Most of us intuitively assume
0:45.0	there's a sort of view from nowhere, that you can just do quantum mechanics from the outside,
0:49.9	look in, and write down what's there. Professor Juan Maldesana discusses why we can't.
0:55.7	On this channel, I interview researchers regarding their theories of reality with rigor and
1:00.2	technical depth.
1:01.5	My name's Kirchai Mungal.
1:02.7	I've included further resources on my substack at kerchaymungal.com if you're interested.
1:07.9	Stick toward the end for advice for students.
1:09.9	For you, the listener, as we see a
1:12.3	strikingly honest, vulnerable, and inspiring perspective from the man who wrote the most
	...

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