Leonard Susskind: Black Hole Image is Astonishing | AI Podcast Clips
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00:00:02.580 | So what do you think of the recent first image
00:00:11.400 | of a black hole visualized from the Event Horizon Telescope?
00:00:15.040 | - It's an incredible triumph of science.
00:00:17.680 | In itself, the fact that there are black holes
00:00:19.720 | which collide is not a surprise.
00:00:22.600 | And they seem to work exactly
00:00:24.640 | the way they're supposed to work.
00:00:26.760 | Will we learn a great deal from it?
00:00:29.000 | I don't know, we might.
00:00:32.120 | But the kind of things we'll learn
00:00:33.280 | won't really be about black holes.
00:00:35.260 | Why there are black holes in nature
00:00:41.480 | of that particular mass scale and why they're so common
00:00:44.760 | may tell us something about the structure,
00:00:47.640 | evolution of structure in the universe.
00:00:50.440 | But I don't think it's gonna tell us
00:00:51.480 | anything new about black holes.
00:00:53.960 | But it's a triumph in the sense
00:00:55.600 | that you go back 100 years
00:00:57.400 | and it was a continuous development,
00:01:00.200 | general relativity, the discovery of black holes,
00:01:03.460 | LIGO, the incredible technology that went into LIGO.
00:01:07.480 | It is something that I never would have believed
00:01:14.600 | was gonna happen 30, 40 years ago.
00:01:19.760 | And I think it's a magnificent structure,
00:01:23.840 | magnificent thing, this evolution of general relativity,
00:01:28.840 | LIGO, high precision, ability to measure things
00:01:35.960 | on a scale of 10 to the minus 21.
00:01:38.260 | So yeah.
00:01:41.380 | - So you're just in awe-- - Astonishing.
00:01:42.640 | - That we-- - Just in awe.
00:01:43.920 | - This path took us to this picture.
00:01:46.760 | Is it different?
00:01:47.800 | You know, you've thought a lot about black holes.
00:01:51.840 | How did you visualize them in your mind?
00:01:54.400 | And is the picture different than you realized it?
00:01:58.280 | - No, it simply confirmed,
00:02:00.740 | you know, it's a magnificent triumph
00:02:03.200 | to have confirmed-- - Confirmed.
00:02:04.760 | - A direct observation that Einstein's theory of gravity
00:02:09.320 | at the level of black hole collisions actually works
00:02:13.480 | is awesome, it is really awesome.
00:02:17.440 | You know, I know some of the people
00:02:18.560 | who were involved in that.
00:02:20.160 | They're just ordinary people.
00:02:21.920 | And the idea that they could carry this out,
00:02:25.600 | I just, I'm shocked.
00:02:28.440 | - Yeah, just these little Homo sapiens.
00:02:31.360 | - Yeah, just these little monkeys.
00:02:32.960 | - Yeah, got together and took a picture of--
00:02:36.760 | - Slightly advanced limers, I think.
00:02:39.280 | (laughs)
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