I'm about halfway through the transcript and will not pretend I understand more than one word in maybe a hundred since this is above my pay grade [1] and I was in high school the last time I read popular science on string theory, but it sounds very cool. Also, this is not a criticism of whoever produced the transcript because transcription is hard and it's much appreciated (I can't listen to the podcast right now because Joe is doing work at 9:30 p.m.), but "fifth route of unity" is the cutest math term typo ever. :)

[1] Probably not helping: I skipped complex analysis entirely, which was a big mistake, ditto the second semester of honors real analysis, because I hated real analysis so much. (I doubled up on abstract algebra instead.) Hilariously, years later, I have met another math major (except she got her bachelor's from MIT) who ALSO skipped complex analysis for the exact same reason.

*back to reading!~*