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Lex Fridman Podcast / episode intelligence

#468 – Janna Levin: Black Holes, Wormholes, Aliens, Paradoxes & Extra Dimensions

5 May 2025 31 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Janna LevinLex Fridman

Claim mix

belief 16evaluation 4uncertainty 3preference 3commitment 2prediction 2disagreement 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

31 published records

01 / uncertainty

I don’t know that any of us can really put ourselves in that position of imagining that we are faced with that quandary, having to take the initiative to participate in thinking of a way that quantum mechanics can kill people.

“I don’t know that any of us can really put ourselves in that position of imagining that we are faced with that quandary, having to take the initiative to participate in thinking of a way that quantum mechanics can kill people.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

02 / belief

We think there’s a lot of drama today on social media. Imagine that. Here’s a guy who predicts how actually in nature would be the formation of this most radical of object that broke even Einstein’s brain, while one of the most evil, if not the most evil humans in history, starting the first steps of a global war.

“We think there’s a lot of drama today on social media. Imagine that. Here’s a guy who predicts how actually in nature would be the formation of this most radical of object that broke even Einstein’s brain, while one of the most evil, if not the most evil humans in history, starting the first steps of a global war.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

03 / uncertainty

Certain books just kind of inject themselves into our culture in a way that just reverberates, and I don’t know, creates culture, not just influences.

“Certain books just kind of inject themselves into our culture in a way that just reverberates, and I don’t know, creates culture, not just influences.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

05 / uncertainty

I don’t know if you know the… Originally, Leon Lederman co-authored a book and he wanted to call it, The Goddamm Particle because they couldn’t light it.

“I don’t know if you know the… Originally, Leon Lederman co-authored a book and he wanted to call it, The Goddamm Particle because they couldn’t light it.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

11 / belief

I mean the predator and prey dynamic is really effective at accelerating evolution and development. It seems like us being able to destroy ourselves is a really powerful way to give us a chance to really get our shit together and to flourish, to develop, to innovate, to go out amongst the stars, or 50/50 destroy ourselves, which I think me as a human is a horrible thing.

“I mean the predator and prey dynamic is really effective at accelerating evolution and development. It seems like us being able to destroy ourselves is a really powerful way to give us a chance to really get our shit together and to flourish, to develop, to innovate, to go out amongst the stars, or 50/50 destroy ourselves, which I think me as a human is a horrible thing.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

13 / belief

Whether or not there are extra dimensions, or whether or not there’s life in another membrane, I think we know that even just in our galaxy, which is a very small part of the universe, 300 billion stars, something like that, a whole kind of variety of possibilities to be explored, by nature in the same way that we’re describing it.

“Whether or not there are extra dimensions, or whether or not there’s life in another membrane, I think we know that even just in our galaxy, which is a very small part of the universe, 300 billion stars, something like that, a whole kind of variety of possibilities to be explored, by nature in the same way that we’re describing it.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

15 / commitment

I am absolutely able to say, “Oh, that’s just not…” I mean, I’m not going to deny that sometimes I maybe take a while to come to that conclusion, longer than I should, but I will.

“I am absolutely able to say, “Oh, that’s just not…” I mean, I’m not going to deny that sometimes I maybe take a while to come to that conclusion, longer than I should, but I will.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

16 / belief

Yeah, actually it might. It’s positive energy and a negative pressure, which is kind of like a rubber band sort of quality because we think of pressure is pushing things outward and dark energy has a very strange sort of quality that as things move outward, you feel more energy as opposed to less energy.

“Yeah, actually it might. It’s positive energy and a negative pressure, which is kind of like a rubber band sort of quality because we think of pressure is pushing things outward and dark energy has a very strange sort of quality that as things move outward, you feel more energy as opposed to less energy.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

18 / belief

In sense, if they’re just allowed to directly collapse very early in the universe’s history, they can do that more easily. It’s so much so that we think that there’s one of these supermassive black holes in the center of every galaxy.

“In sense, if they’re just allowed to directly collapse very early in the universe’s history, they can do that more easily. It’s so much so that we think that there’s one of these supermassive black holes in the center of every galaxy.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

19 / belief

I think one of the most incredible things… I have to talk to you about this. One of the most incredible things that humans have ever accomplished is LIGO.

“I think one of the most incredible things… I have to talk to you about this. One of the most incredible things that humans have ever accomplished is LIGO.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

21 / belief

I think when in a corporate context and maybe the world forces you to behave, you’re supposed to be a certain kind of way, there’s some aspects, and it’s a really beautiful aspect to preserve and to celebrate in academia is you’re just allowed to be childlike in your curiosity and your exploration.

“I think when in a corporate context and maybe the world forces you to behave, you’re supposed to be a certain kind of way, there’s some aspects, and it’s a really beautiful aspect to preserve and to celebrate in academia is you’re just allowed to be childlike in your curiosity and your exploration.”
Speaker
Lex Fridman
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

23 / preference

You can wound one badly, and there are certain jellyfish that will go back into a kind of pre-state and start over. So I think we’re very attached to imagining creatures like us, that manipulate technology, and I think we have to be way more imaginative if we’re going to really take seriously life in the universe.

“You can wound one badly, and there are certain jellyfish that will go back into a kind of pre-state and start over. So I think we’re very attached to imagining creatures like us, that manipulate technology, and I think we have to be way more imaginative if we’re going to really take seriously life in the universe.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

24 / evaluation

There’s a reference to it in the film where they’re sort of joking, “Well, I guess nobody’s going to pay attention to your paper now,” because of the Nazi advance on Poland.

“There’s a reference to it in the film where they’re sort of joking, “Well, I guess nobody’s going to pay attention to your paper now,” because of the Nazi advance on Poland.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

26 / disagreement

He did. But some people who love quantum mechanics were really annoyed, people like Lenny Susskind, Gerard’t Hooft, Nobel Prize winner, they were mad because it suggested something was fundamentally wrong with quantum mechanics if it was right.

“He did. But some people who love quantum mechanics were really annoyed, people like Lenny Susskind, Gerard’t Hooft, Nobel Prize winner, they were mad because it suggested something was fundamentally wrong with quantum mechanics if it was right.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

27 / prediction

These are thought experiments that I think we can perform and contemplate whether or not we’ll ever know is another question. And so, one of the most beautiful things that we suspect happens on the inside of a black hole is that space and time, in some sense swap places.

“These are thought experiments that I think we can perform and contemplate whether or not we’ll ever know is another question. And so, one of the most beautiful things that we suspect happens on the inside of a black hole is that space and time, in some sense swap places.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

28 / evaluation

We had predicted and measured the light leftover from the Big Bang. And because of all the precision that’s happened since then, that’s how we’re able to confront that there’s things that we don’t know.

“We had predicted and measured the light leftover from the Big Bang. And because of all the precision that’s happened since then, that’s how we’re able to confront that there’s things that we don’t know.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

29 / evaluation

Black holes are more general and more fundamental than just the death state of a star. But even the history of how people realize that stars could form black holes is quite fascinating because the entire idea really just started as a thought experiment.

“Black holes are more general and more fundamental than just the death state of a star. But even the history of how people realize that stars could form black holes is quite fascinating because the entire idea really just started as a thought experiment.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

30 / prediction

Again, it’s just like can electrons flow the right way. And is it energetically favorable for multicellularity to exist because if it’s energetically expensive, it’s not going to succeed.

“Again, it’s just like can electrons flow the right way. And is it energetically favorable for multicellularity to exist because if it’s energetically expensive, it’s not going to succeed.”
Speaker
Janna Levin
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast
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