#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