Mindscape 130 | Frank Wilczek on the Present and Future of Fundamental Physics

What is the world made of? How does it behave? These questions, aimed at the most basic level of reality, are the subject of fundamental physics. What counts as fundamental is somewhat contestable, but it includes our best understanding of matter and energy, space and time, and dynamical laws, as well as complex emergent structures and the sweep of the cosmos. Few people are better positioned to talk about fundamental physics than Frank Wilczek, a Nobel Laureate who has made significant contributions to our understanding of the strong interactions, dark matter, black holes, and condensed matter, as well as proposing the existence of time crystals. We talk about what we currently know about fundamental physics, but also the directions in which it is heading, for better and for worse.
Frank Wilczek received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He is currently the Herman Feshbach professor of physics at the MIT; Founding Director of the T. D. Lee Institute and Chief Scientist at Wilczek Quantum Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University; and Professor at Stockholm University. Among his numerous awards are the MacArthur Fellowship, the Nobel Prize in Physics (2004, for asymptotic freedom), membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality.
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
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[@robertglass5678]

Hooray for the Physics episode. The other ones are good too, but these are the best.

[@robertglass5678]

@@FaxanaduJohn Awww, man. I must've missed that one.

[@stevenshiver4614]

@@FaxanaduJohn ¹¹01¹1

[@kagannasuhbeyoglu]

A genius guest, an great podcast 👏 Thank you so much Prof.Carroll

[@treborheminway3814]

Many of Frank's books are available as audiobooks, and are always an inspiration and delight. He is truly eloquent.

[@dickarmstrong4092]

Wonderful podcast Sean. Thanks so much for making this information available. Physicists are major heroes for me and you and Frank Wilczek are 2 of my favorites.

[@andrear.berndt9504]

Ah, a fine Physics episode! Thank you!

[@timealchemist7508]

Thank you for this episode! The Lightness of Being was one of my favorite books! Cheers!

[@UncleJams]

Thanks for having Wilczek on. He explains so well and brings understanding forth in a clear way.

[@rollingrock3480]

I LOVE YOUR PODCAST DR. CARROLL!

[@shera4211]

Thanks so much for expanding our horizons and/by fascinating us!

[@PronatorTendon]

Frank is one of my favorite theoretical physicists. I really like his reticence to make unjustified claims, or to extrapolate too far

[@gr500music6]

Frank Wilczek! Wow!

[@gilbertanderson3456]

Thank you Frank. Your appreciation of and encouragement for maintaining contact with reality is greatly appreciated. While ManyWorld's and string theory's reality can only be surmised at an imaginary level your work on anyons and time crystals put novel fundamental concepts on trial physically. Cudos! Funny that the greatest intellectual fun is in the consideration of physical fundamentals.

[@richardcates8918]

Getting this episode and Lex’s interview with Max Tegmark at the same time is such a gift.

[@paulcassidy4559]

Yes! Let's be friends? Lol

[@chaimterrance7621]

sorry to be so offtopic but does anyone know a tool to log back into an instagram account? I stupidly lost my password. I appreciate any tips you can offer me.

[@brettfrancisco4953]

@Chaim Terrance instablaster ;)

[@shannonlyons887]

Thank you for these, I'm grinning from ear to ear with enjoyment.

[@jakelabete7412]

Thank you for this podcast. Frank Wilczek has been one of the most important physicists of the last 30 or so years. It's good to know what someone of his caliber is thinking.

[@BetinhoSM]

So glad my past and future light-cones includes your videos! Dr. Sean, what research area would you recommend for a post grad in AI willing to delve into fundamental physics research?

[@gilbertengler9064]

Just excellent! Thanks both of you.

[@joeremus9039]

Wonderful discussion. I'm going to listen to it again, there are so many excellent ideas here and refreshing perspective on science.

[@Abhishek-hy8xe]

Timestamp(in progress) 3:40 Beginning. What does fundamental means? 8:25 What are fundamental laws of physics? 13:30 Great Courses plus advertisement. 14:35 Emergent interactions in systems.

[@Kwisatz_HaderachXIII]

Thank you brotha

[@kevinvallejo7047]

The cross-over episode we all waited for

[@emilydavid3104]

Sean Carroll, “for the people who are not physicists, what are the fundamental laws of physics” haha that’s why i love your videos. We need people who are not physicists to understand these concepts too! Especially topics like this are so essential to understand the world around us. Thank you for all your incredible work!

[@ioanniskleftogiannis649]

Good discussion. Frank Wilczek has contributed in various fields of physics which makes his perspective so interesting. It would be nice to invite someone from the condensed-matter field in order to discuss many-body physics and emergent phenomena in matter.

[@salmanuel4053]

The video is a discussion of observations and hopes that didn't go anywhere, explored in an appreciative and thoughtful way.

[@doctorscoot]

54m00s frank is describing a helluva lot of code i've seen in my lifetime!!

[@StayPrimal]

You are awesome !

[@blakewes88]

Dr. Carroll, I read your book "The Big Everything". Great and easy read for non-physicist here. (Actually EE grad) I wish you would expound on Everett's interpretation more without fear of losing audience attention. We are ready to know the implications of simultaneous splits or divergence of realities based on wave function interaction and amplification, uniformly distributed across all quantum systems. I took a list of seven houses to visit and found I was returning to areas where I had already visit wasting time. I told my wife, being the passenger on the GPS who wishing some app could have prioritized house based on distance from each other. I explained, that actually some reality exist where we serendipitously visited every house in the most efficient manner based on chances of us ordering the housing on sticky notes differently and thus saved some time. Unfortunately, I ended, we did not resume that path. If my understanding is incorrect, feel free to correct. That is the basis for scientific knowledge. You have a good way of explaining the density the topic implies in a neat orderly fashion with some context of interpretation based on our use of ontological terminology. Thank you!!

[@johnphil2006]

Strictly concentrated in physics. Material Man!

[@adriangeorgescu6466]

It is sad that u will be no more at Caltech.It is excellent that the mindscape podcast will continue. Hope u will talk more about yr research about gravity emerging from QM and about before the Big Bang,i am curious what yr opinion is about A.Villenkin theory the universe from nothing is?

[@FABRIZIOZPH]

top notch intellect right there...easily one of the top 5 theoretical physicists alive

[@nycpaull]

Where can I see how physicists "see" particles and "read" measurements of their interactions. Is there a video that shows and explains the equipment that is used to come up with the values expressed so confidently by physicists. It strains the mind to visualize how particles can be manipulated so I would really appreciate an effort by an animator or videographer to show how you physicists actually do your jobs in coming up with these facts about reality. How does one "read" the image smashing particles to come up with values of the nth degree?

[@MrFaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

I appreciate Wilczeks Frankness

[@mrloop1530]

Have you heard Sean's Carols?

[@MrFaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

​@@mrloop1530 carrolls seanness

[@coastwalker101]

We know the fundamental laws of physics now - at least in as far as we can describe what there is in the universe. What we do not know is if we have found the best way of expressing them or describing them is my belief. They do not extend to gravitational singularities for example and they should.

[@BenEng]

Regarding the question "if the universe is a simulation, what is the simulator made of?", of course in this model the simulator would be self-describing and thus self-hosting and self-booting, where the simulator is indeed simulating itself simultaneously.

[@Slimm2240]

How exactly does the standard model equations look because everytime I google it, i see different ways of writing it

[@yrebrac]

Imagine a whole page of symbols crammed together. So very much like a crib sheet.

[@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself]

Frankie!

[@neptunethemystic]

Hey Sean, I hope you will keep Mindscape on KZbin and not follow the trend towards Podcasts moving to Spotify!

[@thomasbje3843]

Why is Mr. Carrolls potcast fillt up with advertising?

[@CMVMic]

Hi Sean, can you do a video on Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology next please.

[@peteunderdown6889]

He did have Penrose!

[@CMVMic]

@@peteunderdown6889 can you post the link not finding it

[@timc7035]

@@CMVMic you probably found it by now, but it is episode 28.

[@CMVMic]

@@timc7035 Actually no I didn't but thank you! I found it nw

[@anubhav21dec]

Wow.

[@krewkijohn]

Get prof. Krzysztof Meissner. A collegue of sir Roger Penrose. That would be somewhat different experience. Great Job by the way.

[@goldwingerppg5953]

Did he invent new particles (axions) or discover them? I’m neophyte and asking seriously or is it semantics.

[@trevorcrowley5748]

I suspect that I am not alone in sensing professor Wilczek's frustration and regret at the current state of fundamental physics. Or it could be that he was just sheepish about his future self accepting the Templeton Prize.

[@null.och.nix7743]

quote: how mind emerges from matter.. chalmers & goff could lean something here

[@itsvladedade3334]

About a simulation not having "hidden structure, not used for anything" well that's exactly what one finds looking at a modern machine learning data set and the amount of unused/incorrect scenarios it attempts and uses to generate it's trained models... Red pill pls.

[@smileifyoudontexist6320]

@ around 50:05 ?/ Is This a "Quasi-World" //? hehehhe : )

[@joshua3171]

quazy holes have mass, neutrino's have mass

[@LuciFeric137]

I didnt know you are an Everettian professor Carrol. You hide the horns well.

[@Rico-Suave_]

Watching 14:15

[@enlongchiou]

Axion connect with anyon by time crystal of super symmetry in aeon.

[@france8607]

How do we know that time is relative, it may be a perception of our eyes, maybe the difference is because our eyes perceive it differently due to relative distances

[@3rdrock]

Hey Sean Carol What's with you guys double dipping and slipping in spoken adverts?

[@BenEng]

Being a software professional, I would address the criticism that the universe contains too much useless complexity, which disqualifies it from being a simulation by saying that the assumption that programs are necessarily concise, rationally designed, and efficiently programmed (i.e., aesthetically beautiful with form following function). Complex systems with long histories exhibit exactly that kind of useless complexity due to too many chefs and dead or abandoned code that no one wants to touch, because the original programmers have long moved on and no one understands it any longer. No one wants to break something that ain't broke, and there is genuine fear to touch it. That accurately describes 90+% of legacy software in operational use today in virtually every critical area of the economy. Therefore, I reject the criticism of the universe as a simulation.

[@arsalanziazie9812]

فرانک ویلچک که اولش ریاضی دان بود و بعد وارد دنیای فیزیک شد، هیچگاه از axiom فیزیک خارج نشد ‌‌در واقع assyntotic mathematics که وی در فیزیک application داد همان ادامه ریاضیات بود. واقعا گوش دادن به او‌با لذت زیاد همراه است. دکتر شان. کرول واقعا ذهن پویا و کنجکاوی دارد و به حق جای ریچارد فاینمن در Caltech را اشغال کرده است.

[@knowone-sts2263]

There are no particles, only fields controlled by consciousness. Maybe it's time we finally accept this ?

[@fcalin21]

You can see he is brilliant by the need of a hair cut.

[@keybutnolock]

Cul-de-sac ? Not very helpful but....

[@joew7946]

Sean, I stole this programing , and your stupid ads prevail. Your Great Courses Lecture is way out of date. Fix it. Also, thank you for being you; I am learning as much as possible for me.

[@joew7946]

*web scrape

[@virgilmccabe2828]

The ads pay for the content. Do you want to learn? If so, you put up with the ads. It’s not that painful

[@lilitvehuni6402]

Or, AI is the only intelligence. We are just pretentious imposters.