Opinion
Susskind: String theory cannot describe real particles without modification
“We know that the formal, by formal I mean mathematically rigorous structure that string theory became, it became a mathematical structure of great rigor and consistency that It, in itself, as it is, cannot describe the real world of particles. It has to be mod…”
Opinion
Susskind: LHC gave no new information, leaving particle physics stalled
“We seem to have run out of new experimental data, even though there was a big experimental project the LHC at CERN. What if that is a great big machine that produces particles and collides them. And I would say I don't want to use the word disappointingly. Wel…”
Opinion
Susskind: A vast, varied multiverse is the only sensible cosmological explanation
“No, it's not mine, but I think it's the only thing that does at the moment seem to make any sense, is to say the universe is extremely big, much bigger than we can see, and varied. Varied means it has properties which are different from place to place.”
Opinion
Susskind: Stephen Hawking was wrong about information loss in black holes
“Stephen Hawking's very, very brilliant insight, even though I think he got the final answer wrong. It was very brilliant insight to ask what happens to the information that goes into black holes?”
Insight
Susskind: Quantum computation could reconstruct matter inside black holes
“With a sufficient kind of technology of quantum computation and so forth, and if we knew the precise rules by which black holes evolve, we could reconstruct from the quantum state of the horizon, we could reconstruct what fell in, what's inside, and so forth. …”
Insight
Susskind: Physicists must discover everything and leave preventing misuse to politicians
“It's not, I don't believe it's the physicist's job to decide what should and shouldn't be discovered. From a physicist's point of view, everything should be discovered if possible. It is the job of politicians and other people of that ilk to make sure that thi…”
Insight
Susskind: Quantum entanglement and Einstein-Rosen bridges are the exact same phenomenon
“In very recent years, we found out that entanglement and Einstein-Rosen bridges are the same thing. That, in particular, an example would be if you have two black holes. Black holes have all kinds of internal structure to them. They're quantum mechanical objec…”
Insight
Susskind: Contrarians Like Freeman Dyson Have High Probability of Being Wrong
“Like all contrarians, he's got a very large probability of being wrong.”
Opinion
Susskind: Richard Feynman Was Mainstream, Not a Contrarian
“No, he was about as mainstream as you can be, but also had his own, he had his own very special scientific personality.”
Opinion
Susskind: Modern physicists are pushed into rigid, overly mainstream training
“Well, unfortunately, I think you have to be really mainstream. Sometimes I think too much. Sometimes I think too much. By mainstream now, I mean people are often trained within a framework which is fairly tight and rigid.”
Insight
Susskind: Reality's 'Program' Is Nature's Laws and the Computer Is the World
“No, no, but I would say, of course we live in a computer program. The program is called the laws of nature, and the computer is, is, is the world.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Susskind: Feynman hated building nuclear weapons and having fun doing it
“He hated the fact that he had participated, he hated the fact that he had participated in the invention of nuclear weapons, and he doubly hated the fact that he had so much fun doing it.”
Insight
Susskind: Dangerous scientific discoveries cannot be hidden and will inevitably emerge
“First of all, I don't think you can hide it. You can't hide it. It's gonna come out. It's gonna come out.”
Insight
Susskind: Gravity rules likely originate directly from quantum mechanics
“My guess is that almost everything we know about gravity is coming straight from quantum mechanics and that there are equivalent rules of quantum mechanics which reflect the gravitational things.”
Assertion Supported
Susskind: Classical computers can never simulate 100 entangled qubits
“Classical computers can never be built big enough to explore more than 400, more than actually more than Probably a hundred qubits. A hundred qubits doesn't seem like very much. No classical computer can do the calculation of following what a hundred qubits do…”
Insight
Susskind: When Conventional Approaches Fail, Outlandish Ideas Must Be Tried
“When you've tried everything and it doesn't work, there may still be something left that you haven't tried yet because you thought it was too outlandish. Well, you got to try it.”
Insight
Susskind: Contrarians oppose mainstream views solely for the sake of it
“Free thinking, but that doesn't mean being a contrarian. A contrarian is somebody who is contrary just for the sake of being contrary.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Susskind: Producing gravitons will remain insurmountable for a million years
“Building a machine that could produce gravitons At least for the next million years is going to be insurmountable. It's not, I think it's not going to be done. On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Susskind: The anthropic principle is widely hated among physicists
“That's called the anthropic principle, and it's a widely hated idea among physicists.”
Assertion Supported
Susskind: Black holes store 10^10 times more information than ordinary matter
“Our world is mostly all black holes, it really is, in the sense that the information stored in matter is at least
let me think I think about 10 to the 10th, a factor of 10 to the 10th more information stored in black holes than anything else.”
Insight
Susskind: Mapping 3D space onto 2D boundaries produces visual discontinuity
“It is possible to map a three dimensional world onto two dimensions, but never in a way in which the two dimensional stuff looks anything like the thing you're mapping. It will look random. It will look it will look like a simply confused jumble of little tiny…”
Opinion
Susskind: Richard Feynman was deeply philosophical despite claiming to dislike philosophy
“Feynman this claimed to dislike Philosophy. He did dislike philosophy, but I'll tell you what that means in a minute. And yet he was the most philosophical of all physicists. He really was. He was a deep philosopher. When I say he didn't like philosophy, I mea…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Susskind: Space-based LIGO is technologically feasible and will be built
“It's trivial in the sense that in principle we can do it. We will do it. And it probably doesn't involve any technological hurdles, which are insurmountable.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Leonard Susskind: String theory became mainstream despite its radical origins
“Which is extremely mainstream, you'll notice.
[571] Podcast Host: Which is super mainstream, yeah.
[572] Leonard Susskind: But it wasn't when we started it.
[574] Podcast Host: Correct.
[575] Podcast Host: Well that's where the idea, right.
[576] SPEAKER_02: R…”
Leonard Susskind