Why Space-Time Never Existed | Leonard Susskind

Описание: Space and time feel unavoidable. Everything seems to happen somewhere, and every event appears to unfold in time. For more than a century, physics treated space-time as the fundamental stage on which reality plays out. But modern theoretical physics points to a far more radical possibility: space-time may not be fundamental at all.

In this video, we explore what physicists actually mean by that claim. “Not fundamental” does not mean space-time is wrong or obsolete. It means that space and time may not belong to the deepest layer of reality. Instead, they may be emergent—effective descriptions that work at human scales but dissolve at the most basic level of nature.

Drawing on ideas associated with Leonard Susskind, we examine how black hole physics, quantum information, and holography forced physicists to rethink the nature of space-time itself. In some of the most advanced frameworks in modern physics, space and time do not appear as basic ingredients. What exists instead are relationships, constraints, and patterns of information.

Black holes exposed a profound conflict. According to quantum mechanics, information cannot be destroyed. Yet classical descriptions of space-time seemed to allow exactly that. Resolving this paradox led to a striking conclusion: the geometry of space-time is not fundamental. It is a derived concept—a way of organizing deeper, non-spatial physics into a form we can visualize.

This documentary avoids equations and focuses on intuition. Through thought experiments and conceptual insights, we explore why space-time feels so real, why physics relied on it for so long, and why it may ultimately be a useful illusion rather than the bedrock of reality.

If space-time does not exist at the deepest level, then reality does not unfold within space and time. Space and time unfold from reality. Grasping this reversal changes how we think about the universe, causality, and what it means for anything to exist at all.

This is a slow, reflective exploration for viewers willing to question the most basic assumptions about reality.