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Quantum Gravity Research, But A 1000x Smaller | Ivette Fuentes

2025-12-26 Education
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Essentia Foundation
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Description

Professor of physics Ivette Fuentes is doing groundbreaking work at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. At the heart of Fuentes’ work are Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs)—ultra-cold states of matter in which millions of atoms behave as a single quantum system. These systems are exquisitely sensitive to gravitational effects, making them ideal candidates for probing whether gravity plays an active role in quantum collapse, as Roger Penrose has long suggested. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Fuentes reflects on her original, cross-disciplinary approach to physics by drawing on her background as a dancer: first, one must fully master the classical forms—the established fields of physics—but true novelty only emerges when one dares to break the rules. 0:00 Introduction 4:06 Fuentes about her background as a dancer & Physics as a dance 10:08 The tension between general relativity and quantum mechanics 12:26 Strategies for unifying gravity and quantum theory 17:26 Ivette Fuentes’ work in quantum optics 21:08 Quantum field theory in curved spacetime 28:15 Roger Penrose’s dissatisfaction with quantum theory 34:52 If gravity collapses the wavefunction 37:39 Fuentes’ view compared to Penrose 44:21 Bose–Einstein condensates explained 49:51 Do phonons have gravitational effects? 55:02 The metaphysical implications of Fuentes’ work 1:01:12 Does metaphysics play a role in physics? 1:02:45 Working with Roger Penrose 1:06:30 Quantum mechanics and consciousness 1:10:40 Not surrendering to purely epistemic approaches 1:14:02 Parsimony in doing physics 1:17:37 Letting go of deeply held assumptions 1:24:29 The current paradigm in physics 1:26:13 What would physics look like from an idealist perspective? 1:27:17 Fuentes’ upcoming paper 1:29:00 Wearing different hats as a physicist 1:30:27 How Fuentes thinks about reality at home 1:31:59 Physics, classical ballet, and modern dance Archival footage used under fair use: Bose Einstein Condensates visualised: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shdLjIkRaS8 LIGO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtp71NT0GNg Spacetime visualisations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNqTamaKMC8 Copyright © 2025 Essentia Foundation. All rights on interview content reserved.

Top Comments (10)

@heinzgassner1057 2025-12-27

Always the same pattern: Great breakthroughs come from people with wide open minds and hearts, especially to music, philosophy, poetry (and of course also dance). Be it Einstein, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Pauli and many many more. This apparently opens the portal to ‚intuition‘, which is this indescribable spark at the center of most of humanity‘s ‚quantum leaps‘ of scientific modeling of reality (which does, of course, not necessarily stand for ‚understanding‘ reality).

48 2 replies
@michaelwinick 2025-12-27

Hans is such a fantastic interviewer. He helps me follow the challenging discussion, simplifying without elliminating important details. More please!

33
@N0r8 2025-12-27

Pls give a bonus to Hans, he is doing his job very well! Keep it going Hans!

23
@movingmountainsaffirmations 2025-12-27

This discussion aligns closely with what some of us refer to as harmonic physics — treating mass superposition as a structural admissibility test rather than a paradox of matter or realism.

12
@dltooley 2025-12-31

I think this is the third Fuentes interview I’ve watched, following Jaimungal. It is awesome to hear Professor Fuentes speak of her intellectual development grounded in classical dance training. And following the life metaphor of then proceeding from the rigorous fundamentals of ballet to the freedom of modern dance to her philosophical speculation on consciousness following Penrose is truly mind expanding. I am reminded of the Emma Goldman quote, “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

11
@DSN0W39 2025-12-27

You want a theory of everything, you gotta dance with all the fields!

6
@fromtheinside4952 2026-01-06

Ivette Fuentes is so refreshing to listen to. Martha Graham is the dancer she is referring to when she says "Graham." I highly look forward to hearing more about her upcoming paper and seeing her back on the show.

3
@ShannonWiltshi-jq8fl 2025-12-30

Yvette is right about the core issue. A lot of ideas circulating in the thread resemble earlier discussions, but often without the underlying structure that motivated them. In our case, those ideas come from a concrete technical framework rather than speculation. We’re not just exploring a mass model—we’re working within a broader unifying framework, parts of which we’re preparing for formal release. We’ll be posting the first results publicly on arXiv soon, where the details can be evaluated properly.

2
@AnnaPeel-h9t 2026-01-07

Ivette is beautifully honest when touching the question of consciousness. We still do not have a working definition of consciousness.

2
@Consciousnessvsscience 2026-02-03

Experiments using BECs to determine whether gravity forces quantum systems to choose a single state, providing the first potential empirical evidence for the theory that gravity is the reason the quantum world does not manifest in our classical world, are finally a step in the right direction. Good luck to the duo.

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