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

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