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Lex Fridman Podcast

Sean Carroll: Quantum Mechanics and the Many-Worlds Interpretation

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman

Technology, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Science

4.713.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2019

⏱️ 90 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at Caltech and Santa Fe Institute specializing in quantum mechanics, arrow of time, cosmology, and gravitation. He is the author of Something Deeply Hidden and several popular books and he is the host of a great podcast called Mindscape. This is the second time Sean has been on the podcast. You can watch the first time on YouTube or listen to the first time on its episode page. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline with timestamps for this episode (on some players you can click on the timestamp to jump to that point in the episode):

00:00 – Introduction
01:23 – Capacity of human mind to understand physics
10:49 – Perception vs reality
12:29 – Conservation of momentum
17:20 – Difference between math and physics
20:10 – Why is our world so compressable
22:53 – What would Newton think of quantum mechanics
25:44 – What is quantum mechanics?
27:54 – What is an atom?
30:34 – What is the wave function?
32:30 – What is quantum entanglement?
35:19 – What is Hilbert space?
37:32 – What is entropy?
39:31 – Infinity
42:43 – Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
1:01:13 – Quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime
1:08:34 – Our branch of reality in many-worlds interpretation
1:10:40 – Time travel
1:12:54 – Arrow of time
1:16:18 – What is fundamental in physics
1:16:58 – Quantum computers
1:17:42 – Experimental validation of many-worlds and emergent spacetime
1:19:53 – Quantum mechanics and the human mind
1:21:51 – Mindscape podcast

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The following is a conversation with Sean Carroll, part two.

0:03.8

The second time we've spoken on the podcast,

0:06.4

you can get the link to the first time in the description.

0:10.1

This time we focus on quantum mechanics

0:12.4

and the many worlds interpretation

0:14.4

that he details elegantly in his new book titled

0:17.0

Something Deeply Hidden.

0:19.2

I own and enjoy both the e-book and audio book versions of it.

0:24.0

Listening to Sean read about entanglement,

0:26.9

complementarity, and the emergence of space time

0:29.8

reminds me of Bob Ross teaching the world how to paint

0:33.3

and his old television show.

0:35.4

If you don't know who Bob Ross is,

0:37.8

you're truly missing out.

0:39.4

Look him up.

0:40.4

He'll make you fall in love with painting.

0:42.9

Sean Carroll is the Bob Ross of theoretical physics.

0:48.1

He's the author of several popular books,

0:50.4

a host of a great podcast called Mindscape,

0:53.1

and is a theoretical physicist at Caltech

0:56.4

and a Santa Fe Institute,

0:58.2

specializing in quantum mechanics,

...

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