You’ve seen the clips. Joe Rogan leans into the mic, eyes wide, asking a world-class physicist if a computer could basically rip a hole in the fabric of reality. It’s a classic JRE moment. But between the talk of DMT and elk meat, the conversations about joe rogan quantum computing have actually featured some of the heaviest hitters in science.
Michio Kaku, Sean Carroll, and Brian Cox haven't just visited the Texas studio to hang out; they’ve brought news of a machine that might make our current supercomputers look like abacuses.
Honestly, the way Joe talks about it makes it sound like science fiction. He often wonders out loud if these things are tapping into parallel universes to get their math done. It sounds crazy, right? But when you listen to the experts he brings on, you realize the reality is almost as weird as the speculation.
The Multiverse in a Box?
During his 2023 sit-down with Dr. Michio Kaku (Episode #1980), things got intense. Kaku was there to promote his book, Quantum Supremacy. He didn’t hold back. He told Joe that quantum computers don't just calculate faster; they calculate differently by using the "mother nature" of atoms themselves.
Joe’s favorite theory—the one he brings up with guests like Tim Dillon or Brian Redban—is that quantum computers prove the multiverse. He’s obsessed with the idea that because these bits (qubits) can be in two states at once, they must be "reaching out" to other dimensions to do the work.
Is that actually true? Well, kind of.
David Deutsch, one of the pioneers of quantum computing, has famously argued that the only way to explain the power of a quantum computer is through the many-worlds interpretation. But most physicists, including Sean Carroll when he appeared on episode #1352, are a bit more cautious. They explain it through superposition and entanglement.
- Superposition: A qubit isn't a 1 or a 0. It’s a mathematical "maybe" until you look at it.
- Entanglement: Two particles can be linked so that what happens to one instantly affects the other, even if they're on opposite sides of the galaxy. Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance."
Joe loves the "spooky" part. He’s often pushed the idea that if we can simulate the entire universe inside a quantum computer, then we might already be living in one.
Why Joe Rogan Thinks Your Bitcoin is in Danger
In a 2023 episode with Roseanne Barr, Joe went down a rabbit hole regarding Google’s quantum progress. He expressed a very real fear: that these machines will eventually be able to crack the encryption that keeps the internet—and your crypto—safe.
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"They think it's a huge threat to cryptocurrency," Joe said. He admitted he was "too stupid to understand" the math, but he grasped the core problem. Most of our digital world is locked behind math problems that would take a normal computer millions of years to solve. A quantum computer could potentially do it in minutes.
However, the reality is a bit more nuanced. While "Quantum Supremacy" (the point where a quantum computer beats a classical one) was claimed by Google in 2019, we aren't at the point of breaking Bitcoin yet. We’d need millions of stable qubits to do that, and right now, we’re mostly playing with dozens or hundreds of "noisy" ones.
Scientists are already working on "post-quantum cryptography." Basically, they're building better locks before the quantum burglars even arrive.
The Fibonacci Sequence and Two-Dimensional Time
One of the weirdest moments involving joe rogan quantum computing happened when he had Maynard James Keenan (vocalist for Tool) on the show. Joe started reading an article about how scientists fed the Fibonacci sequence into a quantum computer.
The result? The system behaved as if it had two distinct directions of time.
Joe was floored. He asked his producer, Jamie, to pull it up immediately. The study was real—it involved using laser pulses to create a new phase of matter. It sounds like something out of a Tool song, which is probably why Joe brought it up with Maynard.
This is the "JRE effect." It takes a dense paper published in Nature and turns it into a conversation about the nature of time and the possibility of "time crystals." It’s not always 100% scientifically accurate by the time the conversation ends, but it gets people interested in the deep stuff.
What's Actually Next?
If you're following the joe rogan quantum computing saga, don't just take Joe's word for it. He’s an enthusiast, not a physicist. But he's right about one thing: the world is changing.
We are moving away from the era of binary. The next ten years will likely see quantum sensors that can see underground, quantum simulations that create new life-saving drugs, and maybe even the "quantum internet" Joe and Michio Kaku discussed.
To stay ahead of this, you should look into how companies like IBM and IonQ are making their quantum hardware available for the public to test via the cloud. You don't need a PhD to start seeing how these logic gates work.
Practical Steps to Learn More:
- Watch the source material: Instead of just clips, watch Episode #1980 with Michio Kaku and #1352 with Sean Carroll. They provide the most grounded explanations of the tech.
- Explore "Post-Quantum" security: If you hold crypto or handle sensitive data, look into which projects are moving toward NIST-standardized quantum-resistant algorithms.
- Check out IBM Quantum: You can actually run simple programs on a real quantum computer through the IBM Quantum Experience. It’s free and gives you a much better feel for the "weirdness" than a podcast can.
The "multiverse" might still be a theory, but the computer in your pocket is eventually going to have some very strange descendants. Joe is just the guy holding the microphone while we all try to figure out what that means for humanity.