E216 - Janna Levin: An Astrophysicist's Guide to Black Holes, Higher Dimensions & the Nature of Reality

Janna Levin (0:00)

I think we're going to start to detect signs of life on other planets within 10 years. The sheer numbers are staggering. Not only life, but civilizations. The universe is actually something like 90 billion light years across. I love that we have the consciousness to be dumbfounded. Right.

We are such a small bit of residue left over from the Big Bang and this vast cosmos. Elements in our bodies were forged in stars, but our technological civilizations might be doomed to failure. We're exceptional, we're extraordinary, and yet I can blast us in a rocket to space. I can also make a bomb.

Nothing is forever, not even the black hole. Black holes are the most profound phenomena in the universe. As far as we can understand it, the star just keeps collapsing and collapsing and collapsing, and leaves behind a region of space curved so strongly that nothing can escape. Nothing dramatic should happen to you on the crossing of this boundary.

André Duqum (0:54)

Sounds nice.

Janna Levin (0:55)

But it does get worse as you keep falling, and eventually you're torn asunder into all of your fundamental quantum bits, and then what happens to you we don't know.

André Duqum (1:03)

I've just had my mind repeatedly blown over and over again.

Janna Levin (1:07)

That's my job. Our origins go all the way back to the beginning of the universe, and we should feel like progeny of this one universe together.

André Duqum (1:17)

What was before the Big Bang? Give me a concrete answer by the way.

Janna Levin (1:22)

This is the definitive answer.

André Duqum (1:29)

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast. Our guest today is one of the greatest living cosmological minds. In my humble opinion, she is a theoretical astrophysicist at Barnard Columbia. And her work really spans a lot. And I'm excited to dive into black holes, wormholes, extra spatial dimensions, the topology of the universe. And that really shapes what we think is out there and what isn't out there. She's also a Guggenheim fellow, author of four books. We got Black Hole Survival Guide, Black Hole Blues, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines and How the Universe Got Its Spots. Janna Levin, thank you for being here.

Janna Levin (2:09)

Thanks so much for having me. It's really, really nice to be here.

André Duqum (2:13)

The pleasure is mine. I told you beforehand. I think this podcast, while prepping more than maybe any other podcasts I've done, I've just had my mind repeatedly blown over and over again. I love that.

Janna Levin (2:23)

That's my job. Yeah.

André Duqum (2:24)

And it's something you spent your life doing, which is so amazing. I'm really looking forward to diving into.

But you started out as a philosophy major. Yes, for my sins. Yeah. So what happened? What happened with that shift there?

Janna Levin (2:38)

Well, I had an odd trajectory on my way to college, and I didn't really finish high school. I didn't have physics in high school or calculus in high school.

And I thought the big questions would be addressed through philosophy. It was the big questions I was always drawn to and interested in, and just the ideas. I think I've always been a little predisposed to those late nights meditating on what it's all about. And I did an entire major in philosophy short of writing a thesis, but I was a little lost. I didn't love it.

It was a really frustrating experience, actually. I think this idea of reading the old greats, the canon, was, I like the canon, but it wasn't answering in a satisfying way the questions that I felt were plaguing us. And in particular, it didn't feel transcendent. It didn't feel true for everybody. It felt very rooted in a specific upbringing or a part of the play. Or even this planet. And when I started to discover physics and the way physics addressed these big questions, I noticed not only that the rhetoric in the room got quieter. People weren't arguing as much. They didn't know what to say. It was so powerful. And nobody was saying, you know, what did Einstein mean? And I don't understand what he meant. And what was his relationship with his mother? You know, there was none of that. Einstein's revelations belong to all of us. They're just a gift. And you own it once you procure it. And you can share it. And you can transmit it around the world. And presumably, it's true on the other side of the galaxy. And that was a watershed moment for me, a watershed experience, where I very quickly scrambled and shifted direction, started studying math and physics.