本集嘉宾是比利时 KU Leuven 大学理论物理学系主任 Thomas Hertog 教授。Thomas 曾是斯蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking)的学生和长期合作者。在这一集中,我们讨论了Hertog 教授与霍金的研究工作,以及他的最新著作 On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory。这本书的中译版名为《时间起源》。
Our guest is Prof. Thomas Hertog, head of theoretical physics at KU Leuven in Belgium. He's also a student and long-time collaborator of Stephen Hawking. In this episode, we talked about Prof. Hertog's research with Hawking and his recent book "On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory". The book is available in Chinese with the title 时间起源. The book proposes some mind-boggling ideas, and the goal of the podcast is to render them more accessible, as well as giving our listeners a glimpse into the thought process of some top scientific minds of our time. 00:13 - guest introduction 00:47 - how did the book come about; Hawking, in the second half of his career, changing his mind about the origin of the Universe 03:26 - how did Thomas become a Phd student with Hawking 05:02 - Hawking was a key influence on Thomas' decision to become a cosmologist 08:39 - working with Hawking on the fundamental of physics 11:24 - what's the multiverse theory, and why it is unsatisfying 25:21 - the evolution of physical laws 30:00 - are physical laws evolving still? 34:09 - the holographic nature of the Universe, and what does it mean to live in such a Universe? 45:11 - on-going experiments to verify proposed theories Blow Your Mind (BYM) is a Chinese and English bilingual podcast that covers a broad range of topics. Some of the recurring themes are: technology, economics, story-telling, history, entrepreneurship, creativity and mathematics. Past show guests include film-makers, authors, performing artists and AI researchers. Email: [email protected]