277 | Cumrun Vafa on the Universe According to String Theory

String theory, the current leading candidate for a theory of quantum gravity as well as other particles and forces, doesn't connect directly to the world we see. It's possible that there is a large  landscape  of possible states of theory, with the hope that one of them represents our universe. The existence of a landscape implies the existence of a corresponding  swampland  -- universes that are  not  compatible with string theory. I talk with Cumrun Vafa, a respected physicist and originator of the swampland program, about how we might use constraints on what kinds of physics are compatible with string theory to make predictions about cosmology and other experimental regimes. In the conversation we refer to a famous diagram representing different ten-dimensional string theories, as well as 11-dimensional M-theory, as different limits of an  underlying fundamental theory . Support Mindscape on  Patreon . Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/05/27/277-cumrun-vafa-on-the-universe-according-to-string-theory/ Cumrun Vafa received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. He is currently  Hollis Professor of Mathematicks  and Natural Philosophy, and Chair of the Physics Department, at Harvard University. He has done fundamental work on the dynamics of superstrings, the entropy of black holes, F-theory, and other topics. Among his awards are the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Dirac Medal, and the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He is the author of the book  Puzzles to Unravel the Universe . Web site Harvard web page Google Scholar publications Wikipedia