Sean Carroll: Quantum Mechanics and the Many-Worlds Interpretation

About this episode

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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. </span><span style="font-size: 1rem;">This is the second time Sean has been on the podcast. You can watch the </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NJrvyRo0c">first time on YouTube</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;"> or </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://lexfridman.com/sean-carroll/">listen to the first time on its episode page</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.</span><span style="font-size: 1rem;">&#160;If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://lexfridman.com/ai">https://lexfridman.com/ai</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;"> or connect with @lexfridman on </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://twitter.com/lexfridman">Twitter</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">, </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman/">LinkedIn</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">, </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman">Facebook</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">, </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://medium.com/@lexfridman">Medium</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">, or </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman">YouTube</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;"> where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligence/id1434243584">Apple Podcasts</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;"> or support it on </span><a style="font-size: 1rem;" href="https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman">Patreon</a><span style="font-size: 1rem;">. Here&#8217;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):</span></p> <p>00:00 &#8211; Introduction<br /> 01:23 &#8211; Capacity of human mind to understand physics<br /> 10:49 &#8211; Perception vs reality<br /> 12:29 &#8211; Conservation of momentum<br /> 17:20 &#8211; Difference between math and physics<br /> 20:10 &#8211; Why is our world so compressable<br /> 22:53 &#8211; What would Newton think of quantum mechanics<br /> 25:44 &#8211; What is quantum mechanics?<br /> 27:54 &#8211; What is an atom?<br /> 30:34 &#8211; What is the wave function?<br /> 32:30 &#8211; What is quantum entanglement?<br /> 35:19 &#8211; What is Hilbert space?<br /> 37:32 &#8211; What is entropy?<br /> 39:31 &#8211; Infinity<br /> 42:43 &#8211; Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics<br /> 1:01:13 &#8211; Quantum gravity and the emergence of spacetime<br /> 1:08:34 &#8211; Our branch of reality in many-worlds interpretation<br /> 1:10:40 &#8211; Time travel<br /> 1:12:54 &#8211; Arrow of time<br /> 1:16:18 &#8211; What is fundamental in physics<br /> 1:16:58 &#8211; Quantum computers<br /> 1:17:42 &#8211; Experimental validation of many-worlds and emergent spacetime<br /> 1:19:53 &#8211; Quantum mechanics and the human mind<br /> 1:21:51 &#8211; Mindscape podcast</p>