SPONSORS: - Sign up at https://base44.com/toe and get 30% off the Builder plan for your first year (the app I built: https://beige-theory-quest-hub.base44.app) - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE - Get Tidy Today! Try CleanMyMac 7 days FREE and use my code THEORIES for 20% off - https://clnmy.com/THEORIES Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This episode is about math after AI started solving its open problems. Scott Aaronson, director of the Quantum Information Center at UT Austin, joins to explain why there is no making this go away. We discuss who gets credit for AI proofs, what is left for PhD students, and OpenAI’s apparent proof of the unique games conjecture. His wife, the complexity theorist Dana Moshkovitz, has worked on that conjecture since they met. The conversation also covers whether a lab that proved P equals NP should release it, and how AI overturned a conjecture he and Greg Kuperberg posed, with consequences for black hole firewalls. We end with Maxwell’s demon and why he thinks integrated information theory is wrong. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - AI Solved the Unique Games Conjecture - 06:01 - Is Math About Understanding? - 14:26 - OpenAI vs. Anthropic Disclosure - 21:21 - Who Gets Credit for AI Proofs? - 26:46 - Mourning the Mathematician - 35:39 - The AI Denialism Problem - 41:31 - Association for Human Mathematics - 47:24 - If AI Proves P = NP - 52:53 - Is Physics Next? - 58:51 - Unitary Synthesis Problem Solved - 01:04:30 - Black Hole Firewalls & P vs PSPACE - 01:15:41 - Maxwell's Demon & Pseudo-Entropy - 01:22:32 - Why IIT Is Wrong LINKS: - The Mathocalypse [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169 - The Mathocalypse, Comment #115 [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10169#comment-2041220 - P =? NP [Paper]: https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/pnp.pdf - Quantum Versus Classical Proofs and Advice [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604056 - Quantum Computation vs. Firewalls [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4504 - Limits on Efficient Computation in the Physical World [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0412143 - Talk at Columbia University [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9243 - Computational Complexity and Explanations in Physics [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/GcbLL4C3VwY - Why I Am Not an Integrated Information Theorist [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1799 - Giulio Tononi and Me: A Phi-nal Exchange [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1823 - Dispatches From the Possibly Last Days of Human Relevance [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9782 - The Age of Wonders and Terrors [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10062 - Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough Is Wrong [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=304 - AI Alignment Theory Course at UT Austin [Article]: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=10125 - Dana Moshkovitz [Website]: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/people/faculty-researchers/dana-moshkovitz - The Unique Games Theorem [Paper]: https://github.com/openai/math/blob/main/preprints/The-Unique-Games-Theorem-September-23-2026/paper.pdf Full reading list for this episode (all 58 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Go to https://www.plaud.ai/curt and use the promo code "CURT" to get a Plaud device today - Our listeners get up to 30% off their entire order at https://undrdog.com Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This is a podcast about whether AI could discover the laws of physics before we do. Hirosi Ooguri, chair of Caltech’s Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, joins for his first English podcast to explain why AI has moved faster in mathematics than in physics. He fears it could solve physics in a way we cannot understand. We discuss why quantum field theory lacks a firm mathematical foundation, quantum gravity as the “final boss,” the swampland distance conjecture he proposed with Cumrun Vafa, and his estimate that, left to humans, verifying string theory could take 2,250 years. The conversation also covers the PhD thesis numbers that turned up in a Mathieu group table twenty years later. What an honor. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - Measuring Earth in Fifth Grade - 06:58 - Why Physics, Not Platonic Math? - 12:34 - Nothing Below the Planck Length? - 23:15 - Why AI Can't Verify Physics - 30:47 - Yang-Mills: Hardest Millennium Problem - 36:31 - Why QFT Resists Rigor - 46:19 - What If Yang-Mills Fails? - 52:35 - Are LLMs Just Grad Students? - 01:01:09 - Swampland and AdS/CFT - 01:12:57 - Gravity Breaks Wilson's Paradigm - 01:21:45 - Will AI Surpass Physicists? - 01:26:58 - 2,250 Years to Verify Strings? - 01:34:03 - Is String Theory Disappointing? - 01:40:27 - Distance Conjecture and Inflation - 01:46:24 - Mathieu Moonshine Discovery - 01:52:59 - What Would Make Him Quit Strings? - 02:02:28 - Days of Blank Paper LINKS: - Hirosi Ooguri [Caltech PMA]: https://www.pma.caltech.edu/people/hiroshi-hirosi-ooguri-oguri - On the Geometry of the String Landscape and the Swampland, Ooguri & Vafa [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0605264 - Non-Supersymmetric AdS and the Swampland, Ooguri & Vafa [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.01533 - Constraints on Symmetry From Holography, Harlow & Ooguri [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.05337 - Continuous Family of CFTs and Exactly Marginal Operators, Komatsu et al. [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.11045 - Universal Bounds on CFT Distance Conjecture, Ooguri & Wang [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00674 - Notes on the K3 Surface and the Mathieu Group M24, Eguchi, Ooguri & Tachikawa [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1004.0956 - Exploring the Holographic Entropy Cone via Reinforcement Learning, He, Lee & Ooguri [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19979 - The Holographic Entropy Cone, Bao et al. [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1505.07839 - De Sitter Space and the Swampland, Obied et al. [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.08362 - Knot Invariants and Topological Strings, Ooguri & Vafa [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9912123 - Topological Lattice Models in Four Dimensions, Ooguri [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9205090 - Kodaira-Spencer Theory of Gravity and Exact Results for Quantum String Amplitudes [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9309140 Full reading list for this episode (all 103 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE - Take Cheers Restore after your last drink or before going to bed and wake up feeling at least 50% better — or your money back. For a limited time our listeners are getting 20% off their entire order at https://cheershealth.com/TOE. Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This is Part One of a lecture where, as with Tim Maudlin, the professor was given unlimited time, so you can pause and check the derivations yourself. Philip Mannheim, professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, joins to explain why he traces dark matter, dark energy and quantum gravity to one cause: stretching Newton and Einstein beyond the solar system. We discuss the planet Vulcan that was never there, why dwarf galaxies are a bigger clue than spirals, the Tully-Fisher relation, and his fits to 138 galaxies with no dark matter. The conversation also covers general relativity from scratch, from metrics to the Riemann tensor, and whether Einstein’s equations are unique. Part Two is still to come. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - Three Dark Problems, One Cause? - 08:31 - The 120-Order Cosmological Catastrophe - 13:17 - Newton, Kepler, and Ptolemy - 21:29 - Mercury's Anomalous Precession - 27:20 - Neptune Found, Vulcan Vanished - 34:12 - Galactic Rotation Curves - 40:00 - Dwarf Galaxies Break Universality - 45:48 - Where Are the WIMPs? - 52:00 - Tully-Fisher: Galaxies Know - 58:06 - Four Parameters, 138 Galaxies - 01:06:00 - Milgrom's Law and the RAR - 01:12:10 - Fourth-Order Poisson Equation - 01:20:28 - Missing Mass in Plain Sight - 01:26:13 - Confirmed Low-Acceleration Prediction - 01:33:00 - Metrics From Scratch - 01:39:00 - Why Einstein Changed Newton - 01:44:31 - Riemann Tensor: Real Gravity - 01:49:50 - Equivalence Principle Derived - 01:55:00 - Building Einstein's Equations - 02:00:54 - Light Bending and Ricci Flatness - 02:07:45 - Are Einstein's Equations Unique? LINKS: - Dark Matter and Dark Energy Alternatives [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505266 - The Case for Conformal Gravity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.2186 - Conformal Gravity at Low Acceleration [Paper]: https://inspirehep.net/literature/3155698 - Conformal Gravity's Newtonian Limit [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02105226 - Quadratic Potential and Galactic Rotation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1007.0970 - Universal Rotation Curves and Tully-Fisher [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03921 - Local and Global Gravity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9611038 - Fitting Galactic Rotation Curves [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3495 - Dwarf-Galaxy Radial Acceleration [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.06905 - MOND Theory [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.7661 - MOG, Cosmology and Black Holes [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.12550 - High-Resolution Rotation Curves of LSB Galaxies [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0107326 - Dark Matter: Fact or Fantasy [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11217 Full reading list for this episode (all 31 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com Math has a proof checker. Can physics get one? Jonathan Gorard, an applied mathematician and the cofounder and CEO of Lanyon AI, joins to explain why AI took off in math and coding but not yet in physics. We discuss an AI finishing the formal check of a Fields Medal proof and why it scared him, why he thinks “I detected a particle” rests on 20 to 50 levels of theory, and what Alan Turing’s PhD student Robin Gandy tried to build for physics. The conversation also covers his push to make physics executable, why he thinks mysteries are artifacts of description languages, and whether there is still a place for the physicist. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - The Sphere Packing Shock - 05:53 - Science as Product vs Process - 11:20 - Is Science Just Hedonism? - 20:56 - Why Academics Ignored AI - 31:54 - Why Leave Princeton? - 39:56 - Turing's Student and Physics Formalization - 44:56 - Theory-Ladenness of Observation - 50:22 - Why Math Isn't Enough - 58:19 - Sapir-Whorf for AI - 01:05:49 - Filtering the Paper Deluge - 01:12:07 - Can AI Transmit Understanding? - 01:19:38 - Human-Readable AI Reasoning - 01:25:59 - Must AI Be Embodied? - 01:31:50 - Mysteries Are Description Language Artifacts - 01:41:54 - Grieving Physics - 01:49:59 - What's Left for Physicists? - 01:55:18 - The Next Description Language - 02:02:26 - Spacetime Discreteness and Beacons LINKS: - Jonathan Gorard [Wolfram Physics Project]: https://www.wolframphysics.org/pages/people/jonathan-gorard/ - Lanyon AI: https://www.lanyon.ai/ - Lanyon AI Founding Team: https://www.lanyon.ai/company/ - Shock with Confidence: Formal Proofs of Correctness for Hyperbolic PDE Solvers [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13877 - BEACONS: Bounded-Error, Algebraically-Composable Neural Solvers for PDEs [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.14853 - General Relativistic Hydrodynamics in Discrete Spacetime [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.02331 - The Empirical Metamathematics of Euclid and Beyond [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.07337v1 - Math Inc. Sphere Packing Announcement: https://www.math.inc/sphere-packing - The Sphere Packing Problem in Dimension 8 [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.04246 - Progress in Formalizing Sphere Packing in Dimension 8 [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.23468 - On Axiomatic Systems in Mathematics and Theories in Physics [Paper]: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/ohad.kammar/scans/gandy-thesis-ocr.pdf - Hilbert's Sixth Problem: Axioms of Physics [Paper]: https://people.reed.edu/~davidp/341/resources/hilbert.pdf - Hilbert's Program [SEP]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hilbert-program/ - On Computable Numbers [Paper]: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf - Lean Proof Assistant [Wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_(proof_assistant) - The Lean Mathematical Library [Paper]: https://leanprover-community.github.io/papers/mathlib-paper.pdf Full reading list for this episode (all 114 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Buy your time back. Get 20% off Plaud for Fall Prime Day. For long conversations where every idea matters, Plaud helps you capture what was said and turn it into transcripts, summaries, key insights, and action items — so you can focus on the conversation, not your notes. Get 20% off for a limited time: → http://Plaud.ai/curt — code CURT → https://amzn.to/3Ta04lD — code CURT20PD - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This is a podcast on gravity, from the ringing of black holes to the number 0.04. Olaf Dreyer, a theoretical physicist who did his PhD with Abhay Ashtekar and now works in finance, joins to explain how he thinks spacetime and matter emerged together. We discuss black hole spectroscopy, the test he and his collaborators proposed and LIGO later ran. Olaf found that 0.04 in a condensed matter textbook, the same value as the tilt of the cosmic microwave background. He argues this means our world began in a phase transition, and he sketches a new way to implement the equivalence principle. The conversation also covers Robert Laughlin’s bucket of water, what banking taught Olaf about funding physics, and consciousness. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - Ashtekar's Failure Slide - 12:12 - String Theory's Carbon Copies - 19:47 - Don't Kill Ideas Early - 24:51 - Black Hole Spectroscopy Origins - 33:55 - Coherent States Critique - 42:51 - What Counts as Quantum Gravity? - 52:10 - Can AI Truly Create? - 1:02:17 - Consciousness Beyond the Hamiltonian - 1:07:44 - Emergence and the "Little I" - 1:14:16 - Strange Loops and Experience - 1:20:17 - Laughlin's Bucket of Water - 1:27:29 - Cosmological Constant Problem - 1:36:56 - The 0.04 Coincidence - 1:42:26 - Just Numerology? - 1:48:53 - Rethinking the Equivalence Principle - 1:55:38 - Gravity as Gauge Symmetry - 2:05:35 - Don't Be Arrogant About Tools - 2:11:41 - Narrowing Before Collapse - 2:17:34 - How Perimeter Became Normal - 2:23:34 - Next Generation's Burden LINKS: - The World Is Discrete [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.6169 - Black Hole Spectroscopy [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0309007 - Quasinormal Modes, the Area Spectrum, and Black Hole Entropy [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0211076 - Olaf's Papers: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1021936 - Principles of Condensed Matter Physics [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0521794501?tag=toe08-20 - A Different Universe [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/046503828X?tag=toe08-20 - AQFT: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/ - LIGO Black Hole Collision Sound: https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/video/ligo20160211v2 - LISA: https://lisa.nasa.gov/ - Lee Samuel Finn: https://web.archive.org/web/20141020034610/http://gwastro.org/us/lee-samuel-finn - Rob Laughlin: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1998/laughlin/facts/ - DESY: https://desy.de/index_eng.html Full reading list for this episode (all 61 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Head to https://www.factormeals.com/toe50off and use code toe50off to get 50% off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year. - Get Tidy Today! Try CleanMyMac 7 days FREE and use my code THEORIES for 20% off - https://clnmy.com/THEORIES - Get 15% off OneSkin with the code TOE at https://www.oneskin.co/TOE #oneskinpod Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This episode is about what physics says is there when nobody is looking, including time itself. Jim Al-Khalili, theoretical physicist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Surrey, joins to argue that the arrow of time is fundamental. Entropy increases because the arrow already points that way, and not the other way around. We discuss why he thinks the measurement problem is taught badly. He wants Bohmian mechanics to be right without claiming that it is, since the price is Einstein’s special relativity. He calls the past hypothesis a cheat. The conversation also covers the block universe, where he parts ways with Carlo Rovelli, and why he wants thermodynamics in the search for quantum gravity. I hope you enjoy. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Quantum Measurement Problem - 08:44 - Realist Quantum Interpretations - 18:19 - Scientific Empathy and Explanation - 30:19 - Electron's Ontological State - 41:05 - Minkowski's Block Universe - 51:59 - Flow vs. Arrow of Time - 1:01:01 - Entropy and Past Hypothesis - 1:14:56 - Rovelli and Emergent Time - 1:25:40 - Incomplete vs. Approximate Physics - 1:31:57 - Causal Set Theory LINKS: - Jim Al-Khalili's Website: https://www.jimal-khalili.com/ - On Time [Book]: https://amzn.to/46PNLxK - Jim Al-Khalili's Channel [Video]: https://www.youtube.com/@UnbaffledScience - Quantum Reality Series [Video]: https://youtu.be/sivQ-jbZ2oM - The Decoherent Arrow of Time and the Entanglement Past Hypothesis [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.03418 - Block Theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/ - Copenhagen Interpretation: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/ - Many Worlds: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/ - Bohmian Mechanics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ - Bell's Theorem: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem/ - Collapse Theories: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-collapse/ - Schrödinger's Cat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat - Loschmidt's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loschmidt%27s_paradox - Thermodynamic Asymmetry in Time: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-thermo/ - Space and Time [Paper]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Space_and_Time - The Strangest Man [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/B002LDM8QS?tag=toe08-20 - Beyond the Quantum [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0198853742?tag=toe08-20 - The Selfish Gene [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/B01GI5F2FS?tag=toe08-20 - Universe Today Article: https://www.universetoday.com/articles/quantum-physicist-takes-aim-at-the-universes-mysterious-arrow-of-time Full reading list for this episode (all 37 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE - One thing to pack, five ways to power! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code CURT at https://www.Ridge.com/CURT #ridgepod - Take Cheers Restore after your last drink or before going to bed and wake up feeling at least 50% better — or your money back. For a limited time our listeners are getting 20% off their entire order at https://cheershealth.com/TOE. This episode is about relationality — the idea that spacetime isn't a stage but something built out of fields defining each other. Lucrezia Ravera, physicist at the Polytechnic University of Turin, joins to explain the dressing field method she's developing with Jordan François, and why she thinks the manifold itself disappears from the physical picture. We discuss Einstein's hole argument and the point coincidence argument, why gauge symmetry is a feature of physics rather than mere redundancy, and how a system as simple as two particles can act as quantum reference frames for one another. The conversation also covers relational quantum mechanics versus classical relationalism, why time and space variables vanish once you write physics in terms of fields on fields, and what it means to be a "first principle thinker" navigating a hyper-competitive, metrics-driven physics career. I hope you enjoy. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Bundle Differential Geometry - 00:05:31 - Dressing Field Method - 00:10:40 - Einstein’s Point Coincidence Argument - 00:15:45 - Relativity vs. Relationalism - 00:21:00 - Gauge Redundancy vs. Symmetry - 00:26:30 - Relational Quantum Mechanics - 00:33:52 - Gribov-Singer Obstructions - 00:39:00 - Invariant Path Integral Quantization - 00:45:00 - Lorentz Dressing and Locality - 00:52:11 - Ontic Structural Realism - 00:58:00 - LQG vs. String Theory - 01:03:10 - Relational Quantum Field Theory - 01:09:00 - Foundations of QFT - 01:14:40 - AI and Truth-Seeking - 01:20:00 - First Principle Thinking - 01:25:30 - Creativity in Physics LINKS MENTIONED: - Lucrezia's Website: https://lucreziaravera.com/ - Lucrezia's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@R3Fram3D - A Hundred Years Since Quantum Mechanics [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/UE0RKcnNdR0 - On The Geometric Approach To The Boundary Problem In Supergravity [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.01462 - Relational Bundle Geometric Formulation Of Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.02046 - Geometric Relational Framework For General-Relativistic Gauge Field Theories [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.04043 - Lecture Notes On Symmetry Reduction Via The Dressing Field Method [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.29505 - Stueckelberg Action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stueckelberg_action - The Hole Argument: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/ - Mechanics As A General-Relativistic Gauge Field Theory, And Relational Quantization [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.19845 Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Nobody likes a call center — ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs fixes that with voice AI that sounds human and works 24/7 in 30+ languages. Try it: https://elevenlabs.io/TOE - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad This episode is about how an invisible God comes to feel present to someone who prays. It is not about whether God exists. Tanya Luhrmann, professor of anthropology at Stanford, joins to explain how people come to experience God as real, and why she thinks there are an awful lot of atheists sitting in church pews. We discuss Augustine hearing God speak, why the "spiritual but not religious" category has grown to nearly a third of Americans, why a more lovable, therapeutic God is paradoxically harder to believe in than a demanding one, and how practices like prayer and the Ignatian spiritual exercises make an invisible God feel present. The conversation also covers why religious studies classes (not biology classes) most often unsettle a young believer's faith, and the "liminal" psychological space — the same one that makes a childhood teddy bear feel alive — where Luhrmann argues God actually lives. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Experiencing God as Real - 00:05:32 - William James and "The More" - 00:10:45 - The "Teddy Bear" God - 00:16:00 - Neoplatonic Vibrational Theology - 00:21:40 - Placebo and Hypnotic Focus - 00:27:22 - Charles Taylor’s Secular Age - 00:33:46 - Feynman’s Two Heritages - 00:41:44 - Productive Doubt in Faith - 00:46:50 - Tarski and Belief Hierarchies - 00:55:40 - Apophatic vs. Cataphatic Prayer - 01:00:42 - Paracosms and Ignatian Exercises LINKS MENTIONED: - Tanya Luhrmann's Website: https://www.tanyaluhrmann.com/ - How God Becomes Real [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691234442?tag=toe08-20 - When God Talks Back [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0307264793?tag=toe08-20 - The Faith Frame [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327517833_The_Faith_Frame_Or_Belief_is_Easy_Faith_is_Hard - The Varieties Of Religious Experience [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1439297274?tag=toe08-20 - Many Religious 'Nones' Around The World Hold Spiritual Beliefs [Article]: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/09/04/many-religious-nones-around-the-world-hold-spiritual-beliefs/ - The Cultural Kindling Of Spiritual Experiences [Paper]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/677881 - Sacred Books Of The East: https://archive.org/details/SacredBooksEastVariousOrientalScholarsWithIndex.50VolsMaxMuller/01.SacredBooksEast.VarOrSch.v1v2v3comb.Muller.Buhler.Legge.Oxf.1879.1897./page/n43/mode/2up - A Secular Age [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0674986911?tag=toe08-20 - Two Great Heritages: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman - The Book Of Job: https://www.sefaria.org/Job.1.2 - The Highs And Lows Of Sufi Whirling [Article]: https://www.gqmiddleeast.com/article/the-highs-and-lows-of-sufi-whirling - Say What Your Longing Heart Desires [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1503614247?tag=toe08-20 - Sechit Madra [Trainer]: https://www.instagram.com/sechit_madra/ Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Go to https://www.plaud.ai/curt and use the promo code "CURT" to get a Plaud device today - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE. This is Part Two of the previous lecture with Tim Maudlin (which went obscenely viral). It is the one with Bell's theorem in it. Maudlin traces how David Bohm's reframing of EPR using particle spin opened the door for Bell's 1964 proof, walked through step by step with a simple chart of coin flips: any theory ruling out "spooky action at a distance" must be deterministic, and no such local theory can match quantum mechanics's actual statistics. We cover common misreadings of Bell — that he assumed determinism (he didn't) and that his "free variables" require free will (they don't) — and close with the 1989 GHZ experiment, a cleaner, fully deterministic version of the same proof. Along the way: why Einstein's real objection was locality, not indeterminism, and why Maudlin calls the death of locality the most astonishing proof in the history of physics. Part Three is still to come. Stay tuned. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - EPR Completeness Criterion - 05:25 - Einstein’s Reality Criterion - 10:40 - Locality Implies Determinism - 16:20 - Bohm’s Spin Reformulation - 22:40 - Entangled Spin States - 27:40 - Stern-Gerlach and Quantization - 34:40 - Infinite Experimental Orientations - 41:00 - Heisenberg Uncertainty in Spin - 47:15 - The Singlet State Symmetry - 57:40 - Einstein vs. Copenhagen - 01:02:40 - Pilot Wave Theory Ontology - 01:11:30 - Configuration Space vs. Reality - 01:23:40 - Von Neumann’s "Foolish" Proof - 01:31:45 - Eliminating the Observer - 01:41:15 - Kochen-Specker and Contextuality - 01:51:15 - Contrapositive Logic of EPR - 02:03:10 - Offset Angles and Statistics - 02:14:00 - Bell’s Mathematical Impossibility - 02:20:00 - The 75% Disagreement Proof - 02:31:00 - Many Worlds Non-Locality - 02:37:15 - Statistical Independence Assumption - 02:42:50 - Free Will Red Herring - 02:54:40 - GHZ Three-Particle Entanglement - 03:03:30 - Mermin’s Cocktail Napkin Proof - 03:11:30 - Superdeterminism and Matrix Loopholes LINKS MENTIONED: - Tim Maudlin [Part 1]: https://youtu.be/9R0wrBpafYI - Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? [Paper]: https://www.drchinese.com/David/EPR.pdf - A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of "Hidden" Variables [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.85.166 - On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/ppf/pdf/10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195 - Bertlmann's Socks [Paper]: https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pbarfuss/Bertlmann'sSocks.pdf - Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691028931?tag=toe08-20 - Quantum Theory [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0486659690?tag=toe08-20 - A Simple Proof of the Kochen-Specker Theorem [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.4931 More links at https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPONSORS: - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE. There are three questions people ask about consciousness: what it is, how to explain it, and how to measure it. This episode is entirely the third one. Adrian Owen, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Western University, joins to explain how he detects consciousness in patients thought to be completely unaware — and why he believes thousands have been "hiding in plain sight" for decades. Owen walks through the landmark case that started it all: asking a non-responsive patient to imagine playing tennis, and watching her brain light up like a healthy person's. We discuss the differences between coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and locked-in syndrome, and what recovered patients have reported about their experience — including one man whose memories were sharper than his doctor's. The conversation covers how movies like Taken are used to detect awareness through brain synchronization, why negative results can never prove someone is unconscious, and the ethics of asking a locked-in patient if they want to keep living. This is an in-depth conversation with Adrian Owen. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Trapped Consciousness Detection - 00:05:15 - Total Locked-in Syndrome - 00:10:40 - Wakefulness Without Awareness - 00:15:45 - The fMRI Tennis Test - 00:21:00 - Decoding Neural Intent - 00:26:30 - Mapping the Grey Zone - 00:32:00 - Non-Responsive Patient Lucidity - 00:37:30 - Life-Support Ethical Dilemmas - 00:43:00 - Brain-Computer Interface Futures - 00:48:30 - Hijacking Consciousness via Narrative - 00:54:00 - The Liam Neeson Test - 00:59:30 - Thalamocortical Pathway Disruption - 01:05:00 - Deep Brain Stimulation Potential - 01:10:30 - Anesthetic Awareness Dangers - 01:16:00 - AI and Language Lures - 01:21:30 - IIT Pseudoscience Controversy LINKS MENTIONED: - The Owen Lab: https://owenlab.org/ - Think Before You Think [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1324075163?tag=toe08-20 - Into The Gray Zone [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1501135201?tag=toe08-20 - Into The Gray Zone [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/01_ECXZK9dA - Detecting Awareness In The Vegetative State [Paper]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1130197 - Cortical Processing In Persistent Vegetative State [Paper]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)77805-3/abstract - Response To 'Minimally Conscious State Or Cortically Mediated State?' [Paper]: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/141/4/e26/4838964 - Risk, Diagnostic Error, And The Clinical Science Of Consciousness [Paper]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25844313/ - A Common Neural Code For Similar Conscious Experiences In Different Individuals [Paper]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1407007111 - Locked-In Syndrome: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/locked-syndrome - Early Identification Of Recovery Potential After Acute Brain Injury Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12028-026-02605-0 Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices