“Closer to Truth”

Two years ago, when I attended the FQXi conference on a ship from Norway to Denmark, I (along with many other conference participants) was interviewed by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who produces a late-night TV program called “Closer to Truth.”  I’m pleased to announce (hat tip: Sean Carroll) that four videos from my interview are finally available online:

Is the Universe a Computer?

(like a politician, I steer the question toward “what kind of computer is the universe?,” then start talking about P vs. NP, quantum computing, and the holographic principle)

What Does Quantum Theory Mean?

(here I mostly talk about the idea of computational intractability as a principle of physics)

Quantum Computing Mysteries

(basics of quantum mechanics and quantum computing)

Setting Time Aright (about the differences between time and space, the P vs. PSPACE problem, and computing with closed timelike curves)

(No, I didn’t choose the titles!)

For regular readers of this blog, there’s probably nothing new in these videos, but for those who are “just tuning in,” they provide an extremely simple and concise introduction to what I care about and why.  I’m pretty happy with how they came out.

Once you’re finished with me (or maybe even before then…), click here for the full list of interviewees, which includes David Albert, Raphael Bousso, Sean Carroll, David Deutsch, Rebecca Goldstein, Seth Lloyd, Marvin Minsky, Roger Penrose, Lenny Susskind, Steven Weinberg, and many, many others who might be of interest to Shtetl-Optimized readers.