Full podcast episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJoRMFWn2Jk
Lex Fridman podcast channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman
Guest bio: Dennis Whyte is a nuclear scientist at MIT and the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

Lex unintentionally summed up the education system perfectly: “You don’t want to give kids ideas.”

0:51 It's so refreshing to watch a video that gets straight to the point. No trailer, no intro, no wasting my time,  just straight into what I came here for. Thank you 🙏

0:51 I could listen to this man talk all day. He explained things in a simple way.

I have no clue who the interviewer is, guessing his name is Lex, but he is the perfect person to conduct interviews. No nonsense questions, no yapping, looks totally un-thrilled to be there, but is somehow also fully absorbed into it and gets it all.

Lex was super excited & extremely animated during this segment.

Man, I LOVE smart conversations.

MIT Scientist is a fantastic explainer of these things. I had to pause and process occasionally, but i understood what he was putting down. Put his name out there Lex, this guy does a great service to the scientifically curious.

I remember being in 7th grade i really liked the history channel and they have a special on states of matter. Oh boi did i feel cool coming into science class and the teacher asks how many states of matter their are. In my head i knew this was my moment and all the kids said 3. The teacher said yes, so i rose my hand and asked what about plasma!? The teacher shocked looked at me and goes "im impressed you know about plasma but i know almost nothing about it" 😂 i felt cool and dumb because i also didnt really know anything about it i just heard it was a 4th state of matter

"The Klingons call it plasma but it's merely ionized gas."
-Spock

Lex - this is one of your very best interviews.  Have Whyte on again and again.

- How will AI learn about the real physical world?
- AI is already learning about the real physical world. This video literally demonstrating this process. It just invites physics experts and interviews them.

What a fantastic explanation

Beautifully explained. Thanks for the video!

I would have loved to heard his position on the differences between gaseous, liquid, and solid, plasmas.

The 5th state occurs in the opposite way….it’s called the Einstein -Bose condensate and as you lower temperature more and more and approach “absolute zero” (-460 degrees Fahrenheit) at minus 460 degrees F matter becomes so rigid all the billions of tiny atoms blend together into one large uniform atom. This state is called the Einstein-Bose condensate and pretty much all super conducting metals at this temperature just stand still in mid air. (Not even gravity can force it to move up, down, left or right). At this point any super conducting metal in this phase becomes “quantum locked” by the universe’s magnetic field.

I came across ball lightening once while driving. The plasma ball looked like a mini version of the sun was about 4ft in diameter. It came past me, along a ditch on the offside and exploded about 50 yds  in front of me and covered my windscreen with dirt. Spooky stuff.

"Magnetohydrodynamics & Plasma Physics" is discussed in Chapter 10 of Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics" (2nd edition).  Revisiting the concepts in "Cosmical Electrodynamics" by Alfvén & Fälthammar, and "Physics of the Plasma Universe" by Peratt deserves attention, especially in light of contemporary observations from JWST and other observatories.

I love watching podcasts to learn about stuff I never would have thought about in the first place 😁

Thank you for this video Lex. You’re always helping fill the gaps in my knowledge ❤