Dr. Bernardo Huberman: How to Use Curiosity & Focus to Create a Joyful & Meaningful Life

In this episode, my guest is Dr. Bernardo Huberman, Ph.D., a research physicist, expert on quantum networks, and vice president of CableLabs’ Next-Gen Systems. We discuss his journey into science, beginning in South America, how a curiosity about physics led him to the United States, and how his hunger for studying novel problems guided him into fields like physics, computer science, biology, economics, and, most recently, quantum computing. He explains relativity theory, chaos theory, fractals, and quantum internet in terms anyone can understand.  

We explore how curiosity has continually guided his decisions about what to study and how to live, and how researching hard, even abstract, problems can serve as a model for staying grounded and enjoying everyday life. We also discuss meditation, spirituality, and why continually asking questions about how the world is organized can bring about an immense and lasting sense of meaning and joy.

Articles

• Energy of a tachyon in a magnetic field (Physics Letters B)
• Chaos, Qualitative Reasoning, and The Predictability Problem (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center)
• Mostly chaos (Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications)
• A Guide to Global Quantum Key Distribution Networks (arXiv quant-ph)
• Hallucinations and Emergence in Large Language Models (SSRN)

Books

• The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
• Relativity : the Special and General Theory: Original Version
• Chaos: Making a New Science
• The Computer and the Brain (The Silliman Memorial Lectures Series)
• On Human Nature: Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, With a New Preface

Other Resources

• Roger Penrose (Lex Fridman Podcast)

Huberman Lab Episodes Mentioned

• Marc Andreessen: How Risk Taking, Innovation & Artificial Intelligence Transform Human Experience
• Esther Perel: How to Find, Build & Maintain Healthy Romantic Relationships

People Mentioned

• Juan Maldacena: Professor of Theoretical Physics, Institute for Advanced Study
• Bronisław Huberman: Polish violinist, founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra
• Javier Milei: President of Argentina
• Juan Perón: Former President of Argentina
• Murray Gell-Mann: American theoretical physicist
• Barbara Chapman: Professor of Neurobiology, University of California, Davis
• Albert Einstein: German theoretical physicist
• Issac Newton: English physicist
• Benoit Mandelbrot: French mathematician, known for fractals
• Euclid: Greek mathematician, father of geometry
• Edward Lorenz: American meteorologist, known for the butterfly effect
• Richard Feynman: American theoretical physicist
• Emmanuel Mignot: Professor of Sleep Medicine, Stanford University
• Edward Chang: Neurosurgeon, University of California, San Francisco
• Roger Penrose: English mathematical physicist
• Niels Bohr: Danish physicist
• Freeman Dyson: American theoretical physicist