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Three Lectures on Complexity and Black Holes

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Leonard Susskind

    1. Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

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  • Reveals the interior world of black holes, moving well behind horizons
  • Important connections between thermodynamics and complexity are proposed and discussed
  • Pedagogically written, serves as a fundamental introduction to black holes and their complex physical interpretation

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Physics (SpringerBriefs in Physics)

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Table of contents (23 chapters)

  1. Lecture III: The Thermodynamics of Complexity

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 77-77
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    2. Introduction

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 79-80

    3. Negentropy

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 81-82

    4. Uncomplexity

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 83-85

    5. Uncomplexity as a Resource

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 87-87

    6. The Power of One Clean Qubit

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 89-92

    7. Spacetime and Uncomplexity

      • Leonard Susskind
      Pages 93-96

  2. Back Matter

    Pages 97-100
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Keywords

About this book

These three lectures cover a certain aspect of complexity and black holes, namely the relation to the second law of thermodynamics. The first lecture describes the meaning of quantum complexity, the analogy between entropy and complexity, and the second law of complexity. Lecture two reviews the connection between the second law of complexity and the interior of black holes. Prof. L. Susskind discusses how firewalls are related to periods of non-increasing complexity which typically only occur after an exponentially long time. The final lecture is about the thermodynamics of complexity, and “uncomplexity” as a resource for doing computational work. The author explains the remarkable power of “one clean qubit,” in both computational terms and in space-time terms.

This book is intended for graduate students and researchers who want to take the first steps towards the mysteries of black holes and their complexity.


Authors and Affiliations

  • Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

    Leonard Susskind

About the author

Leonard Susskind is an American physicist, who is professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and founding director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology.He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an associate member of the faculty of Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and a distinguished professor of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. He was the first to give a precise string-theoretic interpretation of the holographic principle in 1995 and the first to introduce the idea of the string theory landscape in 2003.

Susskind was awarded the 1998 J. J. Sakurai Prize, and the 2018 Oskar Klein Medal.


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