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