{"podcast":{"title":"Into the Impossible With Brian Keating","slug":"into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783","podcast_index_feed_id":324783,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/ITI7213486251","website_url":"https://briankeating.com/podcast","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/82ed9870-601b-11eb-8196-478a251a046e/image/73e6d21c3fbe038e695dbefe71da6842.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Brian Keating","episode_count":607,"summary":"Think like a physicist. Wonder like a human. Into the Impossible is where Cosmic Conversations happen — uniting Nobel Prize winners, iconoclasts, authors, and technologists to explore reality’s deepest questions. From AI to aliens, from biophysics to the brain, from the cosmos to the multiverse, Brian Keating, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego covers it all. If you’ve ever asked What’s out there? or What’s next?, this is where curiosity meets clarity. Learn to think like this. 🎙 Full episodes, notes & more: briankeating.com/podcast","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783"},"episode":{"title":"The Equation That Changed How Physicists Think About Reality | Juan Maldacena","slug":"the-equation-that-changed-how-physicists-think-about-reality-juan-maldacena","published_at":"2026-05-07T07:37:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783/the-equation-that-changed-how-physicists-think-about-reality-juan-maldacena","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783","url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/BBPI4274739676.mp3","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/BBPI4274739676.mp3","summary":"Juan Maldacena is a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study whose 1997 paper remains the most cited in the history of theoretical physics. We cover: -why wormholes and quantum entanglement may be the same thing -what actually happens to information when you throw something into a black hole -the reason Hawking radiation accidentally gave cosmologists the equation that explains why the universe has structure -whether science-fiction wormholes are ruled out by the laws of physics -the one unsolved problem Juan says matters more than black holes. The most important problem in quantum gravity is understanding the beginning of the Big Bang — not black holes. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 What If Einstein's Two Strangest Ideas Were One? 01:15 Juan Maldacena: The Most Cited Physicist Alive 03:25 What Would Einstein Most Want to Know Today? 07:45 The Holographic Principle Explained 09:20 What Happens When You Throw a Laptop Into a Black Hole? 11:00 Is Information Actually Lost Forever? 12:25 The Problem Juan Wants to Solve Before He Dies 13:50 Why Real Black Holes Don't Emit Hawking Radiation 15:25 How Black Hole Physics Accidentally Explained the Universe 17:00 Could Primordial Black Holes Be Dark Matter? 18:30 Real Observers Solving Imaginary Problems 21:15 Why Imaginary Numbers Keep Being Right 25:00 The Origin Story of AdS/CFT 27:05 Do We Actually Live in AdS Space? 29:00 Are Wormholes Real or Just Science Fiction? 32:10 Could AI Have Helped Einstein? 33:00 Can Science and Religion Coexist? ——— 📬 Get the transcript, fascinating bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/yt 🌠 Have a .edu email and live in the USA 🇺🇸? You automatically win a meteorite: https://BrianKeating.com/edu 🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_con…","meta_description":"Juan Maldacena is a theoretical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study whose 1997 paper remains the most cited in the history of theoretical physic…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2439,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783/episodes/the-equation-that-changed-how-physicists-think-about-reality-juan-maldacena/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/into-the-impossible-with-brian-keating-324783/the-equation-that-changed-how-physicists-think-about-reality-juan-maldacena.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}