Leonard Susskind: Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, and Black Holes

Leonard Susskind is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory and in general as one of the greatest physicists of our time both as a researcher and an educator. 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 iTunes 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

01:02 – Richard Feynman

02:09 – Visualization and intuition

06:45 – Ego in Science

09:27 – Academia

11:18 – Developing ideas

12:12 – Quantum computers

21:37 – Universe as an information processing system

26:35 – Machine learning

29:47 – Predicting the future

30:48 – String theory

37:03 – Free will

39:26 – Arrow of time

46:39 – Universe as a computer

49:45 – Big bang

50:50 – Infinity

51:35 – First image of a black hole

54:08 – Questions within the reach of science

55:55 – Questions out of reach of science