Sean Carroll: Quantum Mechanics and the Many-Worlds Interpretation

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