Janna Levin

It's in reach for thought experiments.

Which are quite beautiful.

Which are quite beautiful.

Which are quite beautiful.

So this is what catapulted Hawking's fame. When he was a young researcher, he was thinking about black holes and wanted to just add a little smidge of quantum mechanics. Just a little smidge. You know, I wasn't going for full-blown quantum gravity, but kind of just asking, well, what if I allowed...

So this is what catapulted Hawking's fame. When he was a young researcher, he was thinking about black holes and wanted to just add a little smidge of quantum mechanics. Just a little smidge. You know, I wasn't going for full-blown quantum gravity, but kind of just asking, well, what if I allowed...

So this is what catapulted Hawking's fame. When he was a young researcher, he was thinking about black holes and wanted to just add a little smidge of quantum mechanics. Just a little smidge. You know, I wasn't going for full-blown quantum gravity, but kind of just asking, well, what if I allowed...

This nothing, this vacuum, this empty space around the event horizon, the star is gone, there's nothing there. What if I allowed it to possess sort of ordinary quantum properties, just a little tiny bit, you know, nothing dramatic? don't go crazy. And one of the properties of the vacuum that is intriguing is this idea that you can never say the vacuum's actually completely empty.

This nothing, this vacuum, this empty space around the event horizon, the star is gone, there's nothing there. What if I allowed it to possess sort of ordinary quantum properties, just a little tiny bit, you know, nothing dramatic? don't go crazy. And one of the properties of the vacuum that is intriguing is this idea that you can never say the vacuum's actually completely empty.

This nothing, this vacuum, this empty space around the event horizon, the star is gone, there's nothing there. What if I allowed it to possess sort of ordinary quantum properties, just a little tiny bit, you know, nothing dramatic? don't go crazy. And one of the properties of the vacuum that is intriguing is this idea that you can never say the vacuum's actually completely empty.

We talked about Heisenberg. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle really kicked off a lot of quantum mechanical thinking. It says that you can never exactly know a particle's position simultaneously with its motion, with its momentum. You can know one or the other pretty precisely, but not both precisely. And the uncertainty isn't a lack of ability that we'll technologically overcome.

We talked about Heisenberg. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle really kicked off a lot of quantum mechanical thinking. It says that you can never exactly know a particle's position simultaneously with its motion, with its momentum. You can know one or the other pretty precisely, but not both precisely. And the uncertainty isn't a lack of ability that we'll technologically overcome.

We talked about Heisenberg. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle really kicked off a lot of quantum mechanical thinking. It says that you can never exactly know a particle's position simultaneously with its motion, with its momentum. You can know one or the other pretty precisely, but not both precisely. And the uncertainty isn't a lack of ability that we'll technologically overcome.

It's foundational. In some sense, when it's in a precise location, it is fundamentally no longer in a precise motion. And that uncertainty principle means I can't precisely say a particle is exactly here, but it also means I can't say it's not. Right. Okay, and so it led to this idea that what do I mean by a vacuum? Because I can't 100% precisely know.

It's foundational. In some sense, when it's in a precise location, it is fundamentally no longer in a precise motion. And that uncertainty principle means I can't precisely say a particle is exactly here, but it also means I can't say it's not. Right. Okay, and so it led to this idea that what do I mean by a vacuum? Because I can't 100% precisely know.

It's foundational. In some sense, when it's in a precise location, it is fundamentally no longer in a precise motion. And that uncertainty principle means I can't precisely say a particle is exactly here, but it also means I can't say it's not. Right. Okay, and so it led to this idea that what do I mean by a vacuum? Because I can't 100% precisely know.

In fact, there's not really meaningful to say that there's zero particles here. And so what you can say, however, is you can say, well, maybe particles kind of froth around in this seething quantum sea of the vacuum. Maybe two particles come into existence and they're entangled in such a way that they cancel out each other's properties so they have the properties of the vacuum.

In fact, there's not really meaningful to say that there's zero particles here. And so what you can say, however, is you can say, well, maybe particles kind of froth around in this seething quantum sea of the vacuum. Maybe two particles come into existence and they're entangled in such a way that they cancel out each other's properties so they have the properties of the vacuum.

In fact, there's not really meaningful to say that there's zero particles here. And so what you can say, however, is you can say, well, maybe particles kind of froth around in this seething quantum sea of the vacuum. Maybe two particles come into existence and they're entangled in such a way that they cancel out each other's properties so they have the properties of the vacuum.

They don't destroy the kind of properties of the vacuum because they cancel out each other's spin maybe, each other's charge maybe, things like that. But they kind of froth around. They come, they go, they come, they go. And that's what we really think is the best that empty space can do in a quantum mechanical universe.