Phymaths podcast # 48 || Guest: Dr. Raghu Mahajan

Description Dr. Raghu Mahajan is a theoretical physicist at ICTS Bangalore, working on the problems regarding instantons. He has previously worked on the Island's approach to Black Holes. A list of his works can be found in the link below. Some links 1) Dr. Mahajan's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1229066 2) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: [email protected] Time stamps (0:00:00) Coming Up (0:00:26) Intro of guest (0:00:54) Time at IIT and interest in Physics (0:04:30) His interest in String Theory (0:08:20) Interest in the Islands approach (0:10:09) Massive Gravitons in Islands? (0:15:43) His opinion on the Fuzzball program (0:18:44) State of string theory (0:21:46) Important Areas in String Theory (0:24:30) Pure Spinor Formalism (0:25:18) String Field Theory's community (0:29:04) deSitter spacetime in String Theory (0:33:24) Third superstring revolution? (0:35:30) Spacetime isn't fundamental (0:38:25) Nonsupersymmetric situations (0:40:47) Swampland program (0:43:54) His work on Instantons in 2D (0:55:00) Job Market in String Theory (1:06:02) (People's question) Intuition vs Calculations (1:08:03) (People's question) AI and Theoretical Physics (1:11:49) (People's question) Computers in research (1:13:04) (People's question) Physics pathway in India (1:14:48) (People's question) String Theory Criticism (1:18:47) (People's question) String Theory is the end? (1:19:31) (People's question) Taking Ph.D. students (1:20:01) (People's question) Advice for young scientists