#359 – Andrew Strominger: Black Holes, Quantum Gravity, and Theoretical Physics

Lex Fridman Podcast

Andrew Strominger is a theoretical physicist at Harvard. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Andrew’s website: https://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/facpages/strominger
Andrew’s papers:
Soft Hair on Black Holes: https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.00921
Photon Rings Around Warped Black Holes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.01674

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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
(06:34) – Black holes
(11:37) – Albert Einstein
(31:05) – Quantum gravity
(35:17) – String theory
(46:05) – Holographic principle
(54:02) – De Sitter space
(59:14) – Speed of light
(1:06:02) – Black hole information paradox
(1:13:41) – Soft particles
(1:22:48) – Physics vs mathematics
(1:31:58) – Theory of everything
(1:47:20) – Time
(1:49:45) – Photon rings
(2:05:26) – Thought experiments
(2:13:47) – Aliens
(2:19:25) – Nuclear weapons