The crazy thing is that with all this, you havent even touched on what he has been doing for the last 4-5 years. He hasnt retired, he is just absolutely ripping through foundational problems in quantum gravity, specifically in desitter space. The man is unstoppable.
Well yeah his recent work wasn't covered. He has been doing a lot of work in using quantum information theory in the problems of quantum gravity and QFT in curved spacetime.
The crazy thing is that there's zero experimental evidence for any of these theories. It isn't as if one could go to CERN or Fermilab and test them. These guys are excellent mathematicians, but they're so "lost in math" that their ideas have little relevance to the real world. String theory will sooner or later be seen as a fad, filled with lots of esoteric math that most rank-and-file physicists need not bother with
@fernandocabrera4599 neither will you. Fan boy. The guy asked a question albeit with a taunt, it's not a wrong thing to ask. Fan boy in you got agitated. I guess morons like you elevate people to a level where questioning them becomes a crime. String theory is still nowhere to be viable but you keep dik riding him cause you are in love with him. How do people like you get into science.
Loved the video Hassaan. This is by far the best structured video on Ed Witten and his achievements. Thanks for creating this. You are truly talented and a wonderful story teller 👍
Hello, I found you in my recommendations and just want to thank you for all the hard work you put into your videos. Even though they’re not ‘popular’, per se, your videos have helped me a lot in the realm of physics and mathematics, and should definitely gain a wider audience.
Thanks for your kind feedback, and I am happy to know that my work helped you. I am changing my content to a certain extent now, and I hope that this works. Let's see. Thanks for watching.
A lot of Hype for a man who has produced nothing that can be measured nor Proven. The useless String Theory has brought Progress in Physics to a standstill! Equal to or better than Einstein, you must be kidding! Not even close!
Edward Witten is one of Brandeis University's gems. He was actually a History major before going on to be the best in Mathematics and Physics. Our Professors at Brandeis talked about him with a huge amount of reverence. They were close to the Fields Medal, but he won it. Why would he retire? He's still doing amazing work. We're lucky to have him among us. Wish I had been able to study from him, maybe Relativity.
I think he retired due to an unspoken rule at Institute for Advanced Study to retire at a certain age to make room for the younger generation. You don't want IAS clogged with a bunch of 90+ year olds who refuse to retire.
I have love for physics but this content was definitely went above my head but boy I was kept hooked through out the video. Besides all, you are good content creator and good explainer as well.. keep shining
Wow .. great video. Thanks for those juicy details and papers. Better to have the important ones in a single video. Enjoyed the Ashok Sen video as well. I am coming back for more :0) .. cheers
@@Phymaths The thanks goes all to you for making such a good piece which does the field and man himself great justice. I think what made this piece so good is that you yourself are a theoretical physicist and as such pulled no punches in describing his works as well as those of others on which he built and or excelled at. It's the most sober and professional piece I've seen on his works and accomplishments thus far -
I still don't know what he did. Dirac, Feynman, Bardeen etc. had easily understandable discoveries, but it is hard to point to any such discoveries by Whitten.
Actually M-Theory is Super-Simple! We start from Superpoint where "Super" means Z2 grading separating all coordinates of underlying vector spaces in symmetrical monoidal categories to "bosonic" and "fermionic". After superpoint we introduce the notion of Super-Lie-Algebras in which we model the Super-Spheres and Super-Manifolds (Calabi-Yau). Then by lifting Superpoint through 4 Hopf-Fibrations using Cayley-Dickson construction we obtain IIB ⟶ ℝ9,1|16+16 ⟵ ℝ9,1|16 ⟶ ℝ9,1|16+1̅6̅ ⟵ IIA. Maximal invariant of central extension of Minkowski of IIA type ℝ9,1|16+16 is ℝ^10,1|32 - The 11-dimentional М-theory with 32 fermionic coordinates. The main tools for studying M-Theory are: Chevalier-Eilenberg cohomologies, BRST cohomologies, de Rham cohomologies.
This is mainly a consequence of teaching quantum mechanics and field theory very poorly to physics students, in terms that exclude the natural geometrical meaning. Witten's main contributions (even ignoring strings) is about exploiting these geometric structures for physical results. His positivity of energy in gravity paper is a good example. Similarly, you can go after other people in this video - Michael Atiyah coined Dirac operators and generalized Dirac's gamma matrix derivative operator to manifolds.
@@tonpa What you describe here are th perturbative limits of M-theory. The full non-perturbative framework is not clear at all. It is believed that this is only seen by twisted cohomotopy.
@@youtubesucks1885 You'll just need to prove theorems carefully in mechanical way of type checkers like Modal HoTT and Linear HoTT. Then you'll see clarity!
Thanks for making this video! Pop science is way too much about the people who make the most noise and humble geniuses like Witten are hardly recognized except by insiders. I have a question: Given that there are such brilliant minds like Witten who have pondered the most important questions in physics for decades, how do you as a theoretical physicist motivate yourself to attack big problems? It seems easy to fall into the defeatist attitude that if someone like Witten couldn't crack a problem, it doesn't make sense for someone who is not on his level to even approach it. Do you think about this at all or do you have a completely different mental framing? I'd be interested in that.
Thanks for your feedback. Well, as a graduate student, you normally work on minor problems which are rarely attacked by big physicists. As you learn more, you attack bigger problems. Witten for example hasn't worked on every problem. There are whole areas, where Witten has negligible contributions. Moreover, if Witten or some other big physicist works on something, it needs to be checked by the community. In addition, if Witten is working on a problem, it is possible that he might be making a mistake there and someone else working on that problem might be helpful for his work. In fact, he was making a small mistake while working on orbifolds and the help that he got was because of the work of Aspinwall. For the source of this anecdote, see his interview with H. Ooguir (linked below). Thanks. Link: www.ams.org/notices/201505/rnoti-p491.pdf
Excellent video, thanks. I first heard of Ed Witten from Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcasts. Would it be possible to create a link that links to the publications you cited? Thanks again for making this video.
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching. Well, that's a nice idea, and I was also kind of thinking about it. I will link all the papers mentioned in this video soon in the description.
@@Phymaths Thank you! I'm following up by watching a video in the _Closer to Truth_ series of an interview with Ed, and trying to understand how the five "different" string theories of the 80s was unified in the 90's, based on the "assumption" that the five different string theories were actually all parts of same "theory" but were the result of studying it in different regions of it's "parameter space"- ? Still trying to get my head around it, especially in the context of Stephen Wolfram's "Rulial Spaces", as well. Cheers.
I bet one of his most popularly known works after the 1995 M Theory paper would be the work which Brian Greene talks about in his book The Elegant Universe, in which his team were working on a model about holes in Calabi Yau manifolds around 1997, and after giving Witten the briefest summary, they realized they were in a race with Witten who could answer the whole thing in a week after the team had been working over months, and the team and Witten ended up publishing their works together at the same time. That didn't even make this list, but I think a lot of people know about it just because The Elegant Universe was a hit book that led to Brian Greene getting on TV and becoming a popular science communicator, and people could understand the human drama in the story.
Thanks for pointing it out. I had to cut out some brilliant works of Witten as there are so many of them. For example, Witten genus, Witten index, and Gromov Witten invariants are some of the left out works. Thanks again for pointing out this work that isn't mentioned in the video, and thanks for watching.
I am not sure. I think at Princeton and many other schools (at least at that time), you didn't need to be a physics major to do a Ph.D. in physics. However, he had other courses in his undergrad but his major was history as you already mentioned.
Anyone that can comprehend calculus at 11 years old has a lifetime admission ticket to any college they choose. Many students acquire academic scholarships. Edward Witten stopped professors in their tracks.
Great video- making it almost understandable to the layman- like to know more about Langlands Program - seems to be at the forefront of research and proofs in our time
Thanks for your feedback and thanks for watching. I would recommend this fantastic video by Quanta magazine for an introduction to the Langlands program th-cam.com/video/_bJeKUosqoY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=bfYTOPZMpOWrvSbX
See this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program In representation theory and algebraic number theory, the Langlands program is a web of far-reaching and influential conjectures about connections between number theory and geometry. Proposed by Robert Langlands (1967, 1970), it seeks to relate Galois groups in algebraic number theory to automorphic forms and representation theory of algebraic groups over local fields and adeles. Widely seen as the single biggest project in modern mathematical research, the Langlands program has been described by Edward Frenkel as "a kind of grand unified theory of mathematics."[1]
Well, yes we can get all the particles from strings and actually more but they are too massive to be found at low energies. We still to get the standard model with all the right properties in string theory. There are too many vaccua to be studied in strings.
@rubbersidedown7992 well I mentioned this anecdote in this video at 3:52. The source of this information is Witten's 2021 interview whose link is as follows www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/46968
I appreciate your work, its very enthusiastic and indulging.... I want to know as u are doing research in string theory, can a single individual in today's scenario can give a complete theory in quantum gravity or dark matter or any thing in fundamental phyiscs, like Einstein, Maxwell gave individually theory in physics.
Well all of Witten's students are good so I chose five of them that I could show in a screen (some personal bias also slipped in there as the five people that I chose were the five people that I mostly read and listen about). As far as Vasily Pestun is concerned, he and the other students I missed are all brillian people in their fields.
It's surprising that he wasn't a prodigy, and that he studied history first even though. I feel a lot of math students could grasp concepcits of calculus at an early age, so that doesn't surprise me too much.
I think Witten deserves the credit for contributions to mathematics, but I was not so sure about physics. This video helped me appreciate what he did in physics, I guess. But his fame might have led physics too far down a blind alley - string theory.
Don't think it is a useful question to ask. Witten is much more seniour than Terry Tao and their domains are different. Tao does some physics (fluid mechanics) but he doesn't do significant work on theoretical physics. In contrast, Witten doesn't work on topics like analytic number theory (one of the things that Tao works on). So, this question is not a useful question to ask. Both of them are giants of their fields.
Still no one puts two and two together. Around 73-76 physics hit a wall, scientists were starting to lose jobs do to the lack of things to do. As we got to the mid 80s EDs long term math would effectively create thousands of jobs, applications, even new classes in theoretical mathematics. It was his greatest work of all, as well as the most negative aspect to the science/physics field. Now all string theorists (the smartest ppl on the planet) are again stuck and do not want to engage any other ideas unless it’s within string. The most influential and devastating thing ever to happen to the field of science
I don't know what your background is, but a small explanation is like this... For strings (in all goos string theories), if you calculate the spectrum of the massless states, there is one field there that has two spacetime indices and is symmetric between the exchange of these indices. These things imply that this state is a manifestation of a field that is a symmetric tensor field, which is nothing but the graviton field.
@@Phymathsare string theorists going to make 1 practical experiment to prove any of this or are their "beautiful" theories still going to remain in the same proving stage as "god created it"
In addition to what @Phymaths replied: First, a good starting point may be the talk "What every physicist should know about string theory" by Witten himself. You can find it on TH-cam. Second: As @Phymaths said, if you analyze how a relativistic string would behave quantum mechanically, you find that there are vibrational states that have the right properties to be the graviton. However, that alone does not explain how these graviton-like particles can "yield gravity", as you put it, and thereby be actual gravitons. The key is something called the "state-operator correspondence" in conformal field theories (CFTs). Let me try to explain at a high level why and what this means (I don't really understand it on a deep level myself, yet): 1) You first analyze the movement of a string through a background spacetime. You find that the spacetime coordinates describing the movement of the string behave (when viewed as functions on the "world sheet" of the string; think of it like a tube swept out by the string as it moves) like quantum fields with some very special (conformal) symmetries, i.e. like a CFT. 2) This CFT has a 1-to-1 correspondence between quantum states of the theory and local operators in the theory. What does this mean in this context? The different *states* of the CFT correspond to different particles (and polarizations) in the spacetime background. The *local operators* can be thought of as local changes of the laws of motion of the string, for example due to *local deformations of the spacetime*, i.e. gravity! If two strings join, that is one string worldsheet connects to the other, the string that is joining has a state on it, i.e. it is an incoming particle (e.g. a graviton). The state-operator correspondence of the CFT now tells us, that for every kind of incoming particle (state), there is a local operator on the "receiving string" that captures the effect of this string joining, and vice versa. This means that for the effects of gravity, i.e. of local deformations of the spacetime, there are also matching incoming states *that will have exactly this effect on the string that the deformation of the spacetime has*, i.e. these incoming strings "can do gravity" (among other things)!
@@Tonixxy Well, neither physics nor the universe care about our human impatience and limited lifetime, unfortunately. It would be nice if there was some guarantee to see a new breakthrough complete with experimental confirmation every ten years or so, at least, but why should the world cater to our wishes like that? Physics is unique among the sciences in that the most lamented problem (at least in the public perception) is that physical theories (like the QFTs making up the Standard Model) work so damn *well* that it is extremely hard to find anything deviating from the theory (with some obvious exceptions that don't provide leads that are easy to follow) and requiring new explanations. But we know that there are some problems that need new explanations and why shouldn't brilliant people like Witten follow those theoretical leads they find most convincing and interesting?
its really alien to me, how did he manage to get a PHD position in theoretical physics after the 1st undergrad year in applied math??...can anyone explain??
It was his first year of applied maths as a graduate student. At Princeton, you can make a switch from Applied Maths from Physics. I guess at most universities, you can make such a switch as these fields aren't that far apart.
I understand most works of Witten but the work by Drinfield and Beilinson 12:35 is beyond me. Had to read follow-up literature to get the essence of it.
Not always. Magnetic monopoles can be stable. They carry some magnetic charge and it needs to be conserved. It means that monopoles can't just diappear. They may break into smaller monopoles but something carrying the monopole charge will always be there.
Do you think its possible to curl up and hide a dimension by energy saturation? Could 4d hyperspace become 3d space introducing a second time coodrinate near lightspeed?
I don't know what exactly do you mean by curling a dimension by energy saturation but therr people out there working on two time dimensions. For example, see the work of Itzhak Bars.
@@Phymaths Matter is saturated near that point of an accelleration when it is close to forming a black hole. Black holes beeing a only a surface, crossing that point will strip of 1 dimension? What would happen in a hyperdimensional world with black holes? Is it still -1 dimension? Now reverse that point of view and imagine a uniformly accellerating 4-d hyperdimension. Would it curl up that 4th dimension? And we would end up only seeing 3 Dimensions?
The most sexy thing is intelligence. But these rare genius are almost scary. I would not compare him with Einstein but rather to Paul Dirac. Witten is a superstar unfortunately almost only in the physics community. But I always hear about string theory is in a kind of crisis. But it might still have to come
The “theta angle” of system at 19:27 sounds similar to the angle of Sato-Tate’s conjecture with both having similar bounds of 0 ≤ θ ≤ π. Also the ground state of such is has an angle proportional to cos θ like that in Sato-Tate. Maybe after correcting for the proportional or considering the generalized Sato-Tate conjecture, they are the same? Witten also related Langlands program (2 dimensional Galois representations in this case) to electromagnetism at 18:29. Going from the geometric to arithmetic Langland’s is kinda difficult. Instead just use the t’ Hooft operators of the dyons in the electromagnetism system and the equivalent Hecke operators to define some modular form. Then, use Serre’s modularity conjecture (proven in full generality by Khare and Wintenberger) to recover a 2-dimensional Galois representation attached to an elliptic curve with complex multiplication. This elliptic curve can described using Sato-Tate.
I am doing my bsc honours in physics now and undergrad was not as bad as i thought just work hard everyday and you will be fine. Don't give up and move on if you are stuck on a subject just work through it, watching videos on youtube really helps. Also i found reading different textbooks for different explanations on the same subject works. There will be tuff times just grind through them man and enjoy.
Thanks and good luck. Just build solid foundation in the basic courses before going to advanced topics. Moreover, don't underestimate the importance of practice problems in your learning.
Thanks for subscribing. It is ok... it can give you a great piece of joy when eventually you are able to understand things that you once saw but couldn't understand. There is a picture of Witten with a chalkboard at the back and some formulas on it. I couldn't understand them when I saw it in 2015. When I could finally understand them, it was a great pleasure. Good luck.
Interesting that he has/had an interest in linguistics... Wondering if there is a connection between language (linguistics) and math intelligence. If I learn more languages, can I become a better mathematician? The idea that different cultural immersions force the brain to develop more intelligence or more perspective.
Linguistics isn't learning languages per se. It scientifically studies language in general. Structuralism comes out of linguistics via Ferdinand de Saussure, which was hugely influential on the then developing field of social science. I'm not familiar with every area of linguistics, but, due to this relationship to structuralism, quantitative linguistics remains a thing, along with all the statistical testing one would expect in any social science. That being said, I don't know if Witten did quantitative linguistics or some other branch.
I am not sure if learning linguistics is the reason of his intellect and I am also not sure if learning linguistics can make someone a good mathematician. The only thing that I know is that linguistics do have a mathematical aspect to it. For example, Chomsky's work has mathematical aspects to it.
Hopefully history will recognize that Witten is on the level of Einstein, Newton, and Hawking. I suspect the reason it hasn't already is because the work he does is so advanced that it's difficult to explain to the layperson. Science writers and popularizers have done a great job of making Newtonian gravity or even relativity more or less graspable in non scientific terms for the public. Progress is being made also in finding ways to convey some basic ideas of quantum mechanics to the general public. But string theory? Yeah, everyone has heard the violin string analogy, but i think everyone also understands that there's way more "there" to string theory. Surely Witten is not a great scientist because he understands how to make a perfect fifth on a guitar string, and people know that. This video makes a much appreciated attempt (really - great job!), but still well over half of it went over my head. Sometimes it just takes a while for history to be able to articulate the true greatness of some geniuses. Sometimes it's well after they die.
Thanks for your comment and for your feedback. I tried to make this as accessible as I could while not misrepresenting what I was reporting. Surely, a better job could have been done, and I would try to better my future videos of this kind. Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
Pretending Hawking is in the same league as Einstein and Newton is just silly and shows no understanding of the history of physics. Mathematically, Witten is prolifically clever, but in the development and integration of fundamental physics with empirical and experimental physics, and with astronomy and cosmology, the name of Witten will be forgotten within fifty years.
Well, if you want something that has been tested, then as I have mentioned in the video, he did a photon photon deep inelastic scattering calculation that was tested later. Moreover, his paper on AdS/CFT (also mentioned in the video) was very important in development of AdS/CFT and AdS/CFT was used to predict the viscosity of quark gluon plasma (where other methods failed) and it was tested in early 2000s at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider).
@@Phymaths So nothing related to String theory? So nothing which he has done which is related to String Theory has anything at all to do with science and the scientific method? I'm glad we agree he is not really a scientist because he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he has done.
@@98danielray Did you just ignore my reply? I will post it again, perhaps you would like to reply to it rather than casting insults while failing to use capital letters in your sentences? Here is the message again: "So nothing related to String theory? So nothing which he has done which is related to String Theory has anything at all to do with science and the scientific method? I'm glad we agree he is not really a scientist because he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he has done.!" Do you agree that he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he does and has done? Or not? Simple question. Try to answer Perhaps you think he has? Explain that?
Ok if you are actually saying this, then I am glad to know that. If this comment is sarcastic, then I would say that sure, this video is at a popular level, omitting many details out. If you want to read about more details, then I can recommend recources to read (depending on the topics that you want to study).
His physical presence must be unusual for such a mind... you can already see this in the stiffness of his joints as he walks, the regularity of the scull, and one can compare the subtlety of his gaze and soft voice to the eye of a storm.
The guy might be a genius, but String Theory might be all wrong. It's been ~50 years since psychics hasn't produced any novel type of tech. So who cares who went were, who did what. What are going to do with science today+moving forth. ... nice video. 😅
This isn't "Smart" guy, this is Intelligence. Intelligence is based on the amount of information we can store and how we connect that information. Yes, he is that Intelligent.
I won't have to do that if you want a piece of work that was verified experimentally. If you look at 4:07 you will see that I mentioned a photon-photon scattering calculation done by him, which was tested experimentally. Moreover, his most cited paper is his paper on AdS/CFT. AdS/CFT was used to predict the behavior of the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma and at that time, all other methods failed to give the correct prediction. The prediction of AdS/CFT about the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma was tested in the mid-2000s by heavy ion collider experiments. So, here are two things that have some experimental proof. Surely everything that he has worked on doesn't have experimental proof yet but some of the things that he worked on do have experimental proof. Thanks.
Witten has been, and continues to be, overvalued. He incorrectly invested his efforts in String Theory, which has since become a subject of ridicule. Moreover, he failed to secure a Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award in physics. Given the high expectations placed on him since the 1990s, one would have anticipated significant contributions from him that could merit a Nobel Prize, but such achievements have not materialized, and it seems unlikely they ever will.
Witten by his own admission tried not to tackle particularly difficult problems (i.e., ones without a likely solution in his lifetime). What does that tell you?
Well that is not true. For example, one problem that he has been working on since mid 70s (and I also mentioned it in the video) is quark confinement. Quark confinement still doesn't have a solution but he still thinks about this problem (as he said it in a recent interview with Jim Al Khalili on spotify). So, that is one of the problems (but not the only one) that isn't gonna be solved in his lifetime (most probably) but he still worked on it a lot.
@@Phymaths Witten was no Einstein concerning difficult problems and the time spent on them. Witten was more into promoting himself and collecting rewards for his self-promotion. Those are the facts.
Thanks but these are the things related to physics that you might have missed in those 19 minutes. 1) His Ph.D. work on asymptotic freedom 2) His work on deep inelastic photon scattering, which was later confirned by experiment (also mentioned in the video) 3) His work with Seiberg which made progress in solving the quark confinement problem (which is a big problem in QCD). It didn't solve the quark confinement problem because they assumed another symmetry to hold but the original quark confinement problem is to be solved without that symmetry. 4)His work on positive energy theorem was done for General Relativity. 5) His paper (which is his most cited paper) on AdS/CFT and AdS/CFT is something that has actually made tested predictions. For example, it was the only thing that could explain the observed viscosity of quark gluon plasma. The prediction of AdS/CFT was confirmed in early 2000s. For the full story of this dicovery, read pages 122 to 130 of J.Conlon's book "Why String Theory". Thanks.
@@Phymaths thanks. Yea I was trolling a bit. First three are obviously big steps in physics. 4 and 5? I wouldnt put my money on that. Not sure why would anyone care about positive energy theorem in gr? Also I have been told that AdS/CFT so far really didnt do anything usefull by someone who knows better (Caltech professor) but I dont know, I am just humble experimentalist. I know Maldacena original paper is like the most ever cited one but has that ever lead to anything? Sure, it was a path well worth following, just didnt pan out particularly.
This video just became my first video on TH-cam to get 100k views. Thank you everyone for watching and supporting. Cheers!!
PROPAGANDA AND LIES! PAPERS HE PUBLISHED? AWARDS HE WON? NONE! GOVERNMENT CUCK THAT PUSHING LIES AND YOUR TRASHTO HELP!!
Bc's this video is long and you have done an amazing hard work sir.
....................... thanks for this great information
Thanks
This channel is great but unfortunately it is so much underrated......
I hope this channel get's its recognition soon🎉
The crazy thing is that with all this, you havent even touched on what he has been doing for the last 4-5 years. He hasnt retired, he is just absolutely ripping through foundational problems in quantum gravity, specifically in desitter space. The man is unstoppable.
Well yeah his recent work wasn't covered. He has been doing a lot of work in using quantum information theory in the problems of quantum gravity and QFT in curved spacetime.
yeah but can he rip through the same problems in regular space? hyperspace? anti-de sitter space and outer-space..?! Yeah, didn't think so.
The crazy thing is that there's zero experimental evidence for any of these theories. It isn't as if one could go to CERN or Fermilab and test them. These guys are excellent mathematicians, but they're so "lost in math" that their ideas have little relevance to the real world. String theory will sooner or later be seen as a fad, filled with lots of esoteric math that most rank-and-file physicists need not bother with
@@TheLuminousOne Bro you won't reach Witten's level of understanding of physics and mathematics in an infinite lifetime....
@fernandocabrera4599 neither will you. Fan boy. The guy asked a question albeit with a taunt, it's not a wrong thing to ask. Fan boy in you got agitated. I guess morons like you elevate people to a level where questioning them becomes a crime. String theory is still nowhere to be viable but you keep dik riding him cause you are in love with him. How do people like you get into science.
What I concluded from this video is that Witten should fly more often :)
And soak in pools in exclusive skiing resorts.
Or swim
Loved the video Hassaan. This is by far the best structured video on Ed Witten and his achievements. Thanks for creating this. You are truly talented and a wonderful story teller 👍
Thanks for your kind words and I am glad that you liked it.
Hello, I found you in my recommendations and just want to thank you for all the hard work you put into your videos. Even though they’re not ‘popular’, per se, your videos have helped me a lot in the realm of physics and mathematics, and should definitely gain a wider audience.
Thanks for your kind feedback, and I am happy to know that my work helped you. I am changing my content to a certain extent now, and I hope that this works. Let's see. Thanks for watching.
A lot of Hype for a man who has produced nothing that can be measured nor Proven. The useless String Theory has brought Progress in Physics to a standstill!
Equal to or better than Einstein, you must be kidding! Not even close!
@@mahoneytechnologies657Yes, but why here though?
Although I cannot understand anything about his work, it was very well presented and sounded particularly good on my speakers. 👍
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
Only you?!. 😂
I like a tube integrated on high sensitivity horn speakers. It sounded great on those speakers as well
Witten is my favorite sci-fi author.
That one was great !!!
From now on he is my favorite sci-fi writer too hahaha
Super disrespectful considering your lifes work and Edwards
😂
Bet you can’t even solve a simple integral
Edward Witten is one of Brandeis University's gems. He was actually a History major before going on to be the best in Mathematics and Physics. Our Professors at Brandeis talked about him with a huge amount of reverence. They were close to the Fields Medal, but he won it. Why would he retire? He's still doing amazing work. We're lucky to have him among us. Wish I had been able to study from him, maybe Relativity.
I think he retired due to an unspoken rule at Institute for Advanced Study to retire at a certain age to make room for the younger generation. You don't want IAS clogged with a bunch of 90+ year olds who refuse to retire.
Great theoretical physics content. Really happy I just discovered your channel!
Thanks. I hope you will like other content on this channel as well.
A remarkable man, indeed. His work on string theory is either wrong, or true but so advanced for us humans to prove with our current technology.
I have love for physics but this content was definitely went above my head but boy I was kept hooked through out the video. Besides all, you are good content creator and good explainer as well.. keep shining
Thanks
Witten is only mathematical games of which the link to reality is still a promise. That's all...
@@elputas You try to sound smart but deep down you know you're a dumb person.
Having a fascination of Witten’s work I am very grateful for your work on this creation!!!
You are welcome. Thanks for watching.
Excellent synopsis of the work of Edward Witten. Thank you.
Thanks
Such a beautiful video❤.. Keep uploading more
Thanks.
You did a good job explaining a complicated topic
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
Wow .. great video. Thanks for those juicy details and papers. Better to have the important ones in a single video. Enjoyed the Ashok Sen video as well. I am coming back for more :0) .. cheers
Thanks
It's an excellent synopsis on his works and accomplishments
Thanks for your feedback and thanks for watching.
@@Phymaths The thanks goes all to you for making such a good piece which does the field and man himself great justice. I think what made this piece so good is that you yourself are a theoretical physicist and as such pulled no punches in describing his works as well as those of others on which he built and or excelled at. It's the most sober and professional piece I've seen on his works and accomplishments thus far -
Thanks for your kind words. ✌️
Very elaborate and interesting video... Thank you for creating and sharing. 👍🙏
Thanks for your feedback and thanks for watching.
I still don't know what he did. Dirac, Feynman, Bardeen etc. had easily understandable discoveries, but it is hard to point to any such discoveries by Whitten.
You do not know what Dirac and Feynmann and the others did either.
Actually M-Theory is Super-Simple!
We start from Superpoint where "Super" means Z2 grading separating all coordinates of underlying vector spaces in symmetrical monoidal categories to "bosonic" and "fermionic". After superpoint we introduce the notion of Super-Lie-Algebras in which we model the Super-Spheres and Super-Manifolds (Calabi-Yau). Then by lifting Superpoint through 4 Hopf-Fibrations using Cayley-Dickson construction we obtain IIB ⟶ ℝ9,1|16+16 ⟵ ℝ9,1|16 ⟶ ℝ9,1|16+1̅6̅ ⟵ IIA. Maximal invariant of central extension of Minkowski of IIA type ℝ9,1|16+16 is ℝ^10,1|32 - The 11-dimentional М-theory with 32 fermionic coordinates.
The main tools for studying M-Theory are: Chevalier-Eilenberg cohomologies, BRST cohomologies, de Rham cohomologies.
This is mainly a consequence of teaching quantum mechanics and field theory very poorly to physics students, in terms that exclude the natural geometrical meaning. Witten's main contributions (even ignoring strings) is about exploiting these geometric structures for physical results. His positivity of energy in gravity paper is a good example. Similarly, you can go after other people in this video - Michael Atiyah coined Dirac operators and generalized Dirac's gamma matrix derivative operator to manifolds.
@@tonpa What you describe here are th perturbative limits of M-theory. The full non-perturbative framework is not clear at all. It is believed that this is only seen by twisted cohomotopy.
@@youtubesucks1885 You'll just need to prove theorems carefully in mechanical way of type checkers like Modal HoTT and Linear HoTT. Then you'll see clarity!
In the thumbnail, it looks like he just found them, like "oh... here they are"
Ok, that's interesting. Now I can't unsee it 😅
Thanks for making this video! Pop science is way too much about the people who make the most noise and humble geniuses like Witten are hardly recognized except by insiders.
I have a question: Given that there are such brilliant minds like Witten who have pondered the most important questions in physics for decades, how do you as a theoretical physicist motivate yourself to attack big problems? It seems easy to fall into the defeatist attitude that if someone like Witten couldn't crack a problem, it doesn't make sense for someone who is not on his level to even approach it. Do you think about this at all or do you have a completely different mental framing? I'd be interested in that.
Thanks for your feedback. Well, as a graduate student, you normally work on minor problems which are rarely attacked by big physicists. As you learn more, you attack bigger problems. Witten for example hasn't worked on every problem. There are whole areas, where Witten has negligible contributions. Moreover, if Witten or some other big physicist works on something, it needs to be checked by the community.
In addition, if Witten is working on a problem, it is possible that he might be making a mistake there and someone else working on that problem might be helpful for his work. In fact, he was making a small mistake while working on orbifolds and the help that he got was because of the work of Aspinwall. For the source of this anecdote, see his interview with H. Ooguir (linked below). Thanks.
Link: www.ams.org/notices/201505/rnoti-p491.pdf
10:22When you don’t understand a proof, but you’re so smart you just proceed to go try prove it your own way. Wow!
And get a Fields medal for doing it ✌️
Excellent video, thanks. I first heard of Ed Witten from Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcasts. Would it be possible to create a link that links to the publications you cited? Thanks again for making this video.
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
Well, that's a nice idea, and I was also kind of thinking about it. I will link all the papers mentioned in this video soon in the description.
@@Phymaths Thank you! I'm following up by watching a video in the _Closer to Truth_ series of an interview with Ed, and trying to understand how the five "different" string theories of the 80s was unified in the 90's, based on the "assumption" that the five different string theories were actually all parts of same "theory" but were the result of studying it in different regions of it's "parameter space"- ? Still trying to get my head around it, especially in the context of Stephen Wolfram's "Rulial Spaces", as well. Cheers.
But do magnetars exist? Will gravitars exist, great early 2000s Detroit noise band, btw.
I grant you a golden globe. Great video
Thanks a lot. I am glad that you liked it.
I bet one of his most popularly known works after the 1995 M Theory paper would be the work which Brian Greene talks about in his book The Elegant Universe, in which his team were working on a model about holes in Calabi Yau manifolds around 1997, and after giving Witten the briefest summary, they realized they were in a race with Witten who could answer the whole thing in a week after the team had been working over months, and the team and Witten ended up publishing their works together at the same time.
That didn't even make this list, but I think a lot of people know about it just because The Elegant Universe was a hit book that led to Brian Greene getting on TV and becoming a popular science communicator, and people could understand the human drama in the story.
Thanks for pointing it out. I had to cut out some brilliant works of Witten as there are so many of them. For example, Witten genus, Witten index, and Gromov Witten invariants are some of the left out works. Thanks again for pointing out this work that isn't mentioned in the video, and thanks for watching.
The elegant universe show one of the best things I ever came accross
This is an excellent video summary of many of Ed Witten's contributions and associated and interlaced developments in physics.
Thanks for watching and for your feedback.
Thank you for this video. I learned a lot.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching
Great video. You help open science to all
I appreciate that!
Thank you for your excellent summary.
You are welcome.
Witten has a degree in history and linguistics? Wow - so do I! I, too, can therefore be a top-genius physicist. 😂😂
Correlation isn't causation dude 😅
@@Phymaths Damn. Looks like mathematical statistics may be out of my reach for sure.
Written and I are both humans. Maybe it’s possible for me to become as smart as the doc
You are doing really good job. Keep it up.....
Thanks
Really interesting video. Thanks very much
My pleasure
How was he accepted into Princeton math and physics grad schools with only a bachelor's in history?
I am not sure. I think at Princeton and many other schools (at least at that time), you didn't need to be a physics major to do a Ph.D. in physics. However, he had other courses in his undergrad but his major was history as you already mentioned.
Anyone that can comprehend calculus at 11 years old has a lifetime admission ticket to any college they choose.
Many students acquire academic scholarships.
Edward Witten stopped professors in their tracks.
Look who his father was and you'll understand. While he's incredibly intelligent, it was pure nepo baby shit
Great video- making it almost understandable to the layman- like to know more about Langlands Program - seems to be at the forefront of research and proofs in our time
Thanks for your feedback and thanks for watching. I would recommend this fantastic video by Quanta magazine for an introduction to the Langlands program
th-cam.com/video/_bJeKUosqoY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=bfYTOPZMpOWrvSbX
See this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program
In representation theory and algebraic number theory, the Langlands program is a web of far-reaching and influential conjectures about connections between number theory and geometry. Proposed by Robert Langlands (1967, 1970), it seeks to relate Galois groups in algebraic number theory to automorphic forms and representation theory of algebraic groups over local fields and adeles. Widely seen as the single biggest project in modern mathematical research, the Langlands program has been described by Edward Frenkel as "a kind of grand unified theory of mathematics."[1]
This guys on a different level
He handled the bad weather when it came. Obviously too smart for the rain
So, what are the string vibration for an electron? What about a muon? Can we get a description of all the basic particles?
Yes
Well, yes we can get all the particles from strings and actually more but they are too massive to be found at low energies. We still to get the standard model with all the right properties in string theory. There are too many vaccua to be studied in strings.
Witten learned General Relativity in 10 days 💀, hell man this guy is an alien
Where did u read this particular anecdote? If u cud share pls
@@rubbersidedown7992 I didn't read it. I heared it from this channel and I trust Salem very much
@rubbersidedown7992 well I mentioned this anecdote in this video at 3:52. The source of this information is Witten's 2021 interview whose link is as follows
www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/46968
@@Phymaths thnq.
@@rubbersidedown7992 My pleasure
I appreciate your work, its very enthusiastic and indulging.... I want to know as u are doing research in string theory, can a single individual in today's scenario can give a complete theory in quantum gravity or dark matter or any thing in fundamental phyiscs, like Einstein, Maxwell gave individually theory in physics.
excellent video, very nicely structured
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching 👍
I think Vasily Pestun should be included in the list of notable students 🤔.
Well all of Witten's students are good so I chose five of them that I could show in a screen (some personal bias also slipped in there as the five people that I chose were the five people that I mostly read and listen about). As far as Vasily Pestun is concerned, he and the other students I missed are all brillian people in their fields.
It's surprising that he wasn't a prodigy, and that he studied history first even though. I feel a lot of math students could grasp concepcits of calculus at an early age, so that doesn't surprise me too much.
This is an amazing review🎉🎉🎉🎉
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching 👍
A nice overview.
Thanks
How can i download edward witten's phd thesis?
Use this link: www.proquest.com/openview/133acd9a52c8912141ccc02ca06c86d6/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
The thing that I really learned is the importance of taking flights to have more epiphanies
I think Witten deserves the credit for contributions to mathematics, but I was not so sure about physics. This video helped me appreciate what he did in physics, I guess. But his fame might have led physics too far down a blind alley - string theory.
it's all stranger than anyone could have ever imagined.
Is Witten smarter or Terry Tao?
Don't think it is a useful question to ask. Witten is much more seniour than Terry Tao and their domains are different. Tao does some physics (fluid mechanics) but he doesn't do significant work on theoretical physics. In contrast, Witten doesn't work on topics like analytic number theory (one of the things that Tao works on). So, this question is not a useful question to ask. Both of them are giants of their fields.
Great summary!
Thanks.
I don't understand how his guy didnt know he should be in the math/science area when he seems to be the best a physics math
Very nice biography video, Sir!
Thanks ✌️
Still no one puts two and two together. Around 73-76 physics hit a wall, scientists were starting to lose jobs do to the lack of things to do. As we got to the mid 80s EDs long term math would effectively create thousands of jobs, applications, even new classes in theoretical mathematics. It was his greatest work of all, as well as the most negative aspect to the science/physics field. Now all string theorists (the smartest ppl on the planet) are again stuck and do not want to engage any other ideas unless it’s within string. The most influential and devastating thing ever to happen to the field of science
Can anyone explain at a high level how the strings yield gravity?
I don't know what your background is, but a small explanation is like this...
For strings (in all goos string theories), if you calculate the spectrum of the massless states, there is one field there that has two spacetime indices and is symmetric between the exchange of these indices. These things imply that this state is a manifestation of a field that is a symmetric tensor field, which is nothing but the graviton field.
@@Phymathsare string theorists going to make 1 practical experiment to prove any of this or are their "beautiful" theories still going to remain in the same proving stage as "god created it"
In addition to what @Phymaths replied:
First, a good starting point may be the talk "What every physicist should know about string theory" by Witten himself. You can find it on TH-cam.
Second: As @Phymaths said, if you analyze how a relativistic string would behave quantum mechanically, you find that there are vibrational states that have the right properties to be the graviton. However, that alone does not explain how these graviton-like particles can "yield gravity", as you put it, and thereby be actual gravitons. The key is something called the "state-operator correspondence" in conformal field theories (CFTs). Let me try to explain at a high level why and what this means (I don't really understand it on a deep level myself, yet):
1) You first analyze the movement of a string through a background spacetime. You find that the spacetime coordinates describing the movement of the string behave (when viewed as functions on the "world sheet" of the string; think of it like a tube swept out by the string as it moves) like quantum fields with some very special (conformal) symmetries, i.e. like a CFT.
2) This CFT has a 1-to-1 correspondence between quantum states of the theory and local operators in the theory. What does this mean in this context? The different *states* of the CFT correspond to different particles (and polarizations) in the spacetime background. The *local operators* can be thought of as local changes of the laws of motion of the string, for example due to *local deformations of the spacetime*, i.e. gravity! If two strings join, that is one string worldsheet connects to the other, the string that is joining has a state on it, i.e. it is an incoming particle (e.g. a graviton). The state-operator correspondence of the CFT now tells us, that for every kind of incoming particle (state), there is a local operator on the "receiving string" that captures the effect of this string joining, and vice versa. This means that for the effects of gravity, i.e. of local deformations of the spacetime, there are also matching incoming states *that will have exactly this effect on the string that the deformation of the spacetime has*, i.e. these incoming strings "can do gravity" (among other things)!
@@EdwinSteiner khm, when can we expect 1 experimental proof or a proven prediction. I mean it's been 50 years.......
@@Tonixxy Well, neither physics nor the universe care about our human impatience and limited lifetime, unfortunately. It would be nice if there was some guarantee to see a new breakthrough complete with experimental confirmation every ten years or so, at least, but why should the world cater to our wishes like that? Physics is unique among the sciences in that the most lamented problem (at least in the public perception) is that physical theories (like the QFTs making up the Standard Model) work so damn *well* that it is extremely hard to find anything deviating from the theory (with some obvious exceptions that don't provide leads that are easy to follow) and requiring new explanations. But we know that there are some problems that need new explanations and why shouldn't brilliant people like Witten follow those theoretical leads they find most convincing and interesting?
Thank you for making this video.
My Pleasure. Thanks for watching.
Impressive theoretical work but has it been backed up by physical observations?
its really alien to me, how did he manage to get a PHD position in theoretical physics after the 1st undergrad year in applied math??...can anyone explain??
It was his first year of applied maths as a graduate student. At Princeton, you can make a switch from Applied Maths from Physics. I guess at most universities, you can make such a switch as these fields aren't that far apart.
As a PhD in theoretical quantum optics, unfortunately I can't understand any work from Witten even though I had tried to study it
I'm working on a one-year master's degree equivalent quantum optics. It's no joke... so many stochastic differential equations involved.
I hope people like Edward Witten never die or at least live to be 200 years old.
Great video! Thanks!
My pleasure. Thanks for watching.
Born in Eastern Europe. Lived in Baltimore. Prodigy in his field. Anybody else seeing the Hannibal Lecture parallels?
He wasn't born in Eastern Europe. He was born in Baltimore. His ancestors were from Eastern Europe.
I understand most works of Witten but the work by Drinfield and Beilinson 12:35 is beyond me. Had to read follow-up literature to get the essence of it.
Whoever started the Langlangs program is totally awesome!
Yes. Robert Langlands started that in a letter to Andre Weil. He is totally awesome I agree
How significant were these contributions that he made ?
Very
Are magnetic monopoles only in existence for short times; i.e., virtual monopoles?
Not always. Magnetic monopoles can be stable. They carry some magnetic charge and it needs to be conserved. It means that monopoles can't just diappear. They may break into smaller monopoles but something carrying the monopole charge will always be there.
I enjoyed this video! well done!
Thanks for your feedback. I'm glad that you liked it. Thanks for watching.
I am TERRIFIED of this man!
Do you think its possible to curl up and hide a dimension by energy saturation? Could 4d hyperspace become 3d space introducing a second time coodrinate near lightspeed?
I don't know what exactly do you mean by curling a dimension by energy saturation but therr people out there working on two time dimensions. For example, see the work of Itzhak Bars.
@@Phymaths Matter is saturated near that point of an accelleration when it is close to forming a black hole. Black holes beeing a only a surface, crossing that point will strip of 1 dimension? What would happen in a hyperdimensional world with black holes? Is it still -1 dimension? Now reverse that point of view and imagine a uniformly accellerating 4-d hyperdimension. Would it curl up that 4th dimension? And we would end up only seeing 3 Dimensions?
Do a video about Brianne Green another string theorist
Will think about it. Thanks for the suggestion.
Would be s real shame if string theory turns out to be a dead end, given all the work Witten spent on it.
5:18
The most sexy thing is intelligence. But these rare genius are almost scary. I would not compare him with Einstein but rather to Paul Dirac. Witten is a superstar unfortunately almost only in the physics community. But I always hear about string theory is in a kind of crisis. But it might still have to come
Its quite sad too 😅😊
He learned all of Quantum Mechanics in 10 days.
He mentioned that about GR, not QM. Also, he learned the basics of GR. Nobody knows all GR of course. It is a huge field.
@@Phymaths K, he learned General Relativity in 10 days.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thanks
Thank you! Great video.
My Pleasure. Thanks for watching.
1:03 where is this clip of Brian Greene from?
From here: th-cam.com/video/UJkxRqoH1K0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=WHiE26GrgiR2jxaS
@@Phymaths thanks❤️, big fan of yours
Welcome. Thanks for the appreciation 👍
The “theta angle” of system at 19:27 sounds similar to the angle of Sato-Tate’s conjecture with both having similar bounds of 0 ≤ θ ≤ π. Also the ground state of such is has an angle proportional to cos θ like that in Sato-Tate. Maybe after correcting for the proportional or considering the generalized Sato-Tate conjecture, they are the same?
Witten also related Langlands program (2 dimensional Galois representations in this case) to electromagnetism at 18:29. Going from the geometric to arithmetic Langland’s is kinda difficult.
Instead just use the t’ Hooft operators of the dyons in the electromagnetism system and the equivalent Hecke operators to define some modular form. Then, use Serre’s modularity conjecture (proven in full generality by Khare and Wintenberger) to recover a 2-dimensional Galois representation attached to an elliptic curve with complex multiplication. This elliptic curve can described using Sato-Tate.
What does any of this have to do with anything practical? I don't get it.
I am starting my undergraduate course in physics soon. Any advice?
Awesome video
I am doing my bsc honours in physics now and undergrad was not as bad as i thought just work hard everyday and you will be fine. Don't give up and move on if you are stuck on a subject just work through it, watching videos on youtube really helps. Also i found reading different textbooks for different explanations on the same subject works. There will be tuff times just grind through them man and enjoy.
Thanks and good luck. Just build solid foundation in the basic courses before going to advanced topics. Moreover, don't underestimate the importance of practice problems in your learning.
@@Phymaths thank you. I have subscribed to your channel although most of the content is beyond my level currently 😅
@@jannien4129 thank you and good luck 🤞
Thanks for subscribing. It is ok... it can give you a great piece of joy when eventually you are able to understand things that you once saw but couldn't understand.
There is a picture of Witten with a chalkboard at the back and some formulas on it. I couldn't understand them when I saw it in 2015. When I could finally understand them, it was a great pleasure.
Good luck.
Interesting that he has/had an interest in linguistics... Wondering if there is a connection between language (linguistics) and math intelligence. If I learn more languages, can I become a better mathematician? The idea that different cultural immersions force the brain to develop more intelligence or more perspective.
Linguistics isn't learning languages per se. It scientifically studies language in general. Structuralism comes out of linguistics via Ferdinand de Saussure, which was hugely influential on the then developing field of social science.
I'm not familiar with every area of linguistics, but, due to this relationship to structuralism, quantitative linguistics remains a thing, along with all the statistical testing one would expect in any social science. That being said, I don't know if Witten did quantitative linguistics or some other branch.
I am not sure if learning linguistics is the reason of his intellect and I am also not sure if learning linguistics can make someone a good mathematician. The only thing that I know is that linguistics do have a mathematical aspect to it. For example, Chomsky's work has mathematical aspects to it.
Hopefully history will recognize that Witten is on the level of Einstein, Newton, and Hawking. I suspect the reason it hasn't already is because the work he does is so advanced that it's difficult to explain to the layperson. Science writers and popularizers have done a great job of making Newtonian gravity or even relativity more or less graspable in non scientific terms for the public. Progress is being made also in finding ways to convey some basic ideas of quantum mechanics to the general public.
But string theory? Yeah, everyone has heard the violin string analogy, but i think everyone also understands that there's way more "there" to string theory. Surely Witten is not a great scientist because he understands how to make a perfect fifth on a guitar string, and people know that.
This video makes a much appreciated attempt (really - great job!), but still well over half of it went over my head.
Sometimes it just takes a while for history to be able to articulate the true greatness of some geniuses.
Sometimes it's well after they die.
Thanks for your comment and for your feedback. I tried to make this as accessible as I could while not misrepresenting what I was reporting. Surely, a better job could have been done, and I would try to better my future videos of this kind. Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
Pretending Hawking is in the same league as Einstein and Newton is just silly and shows no understanding of the history of physics. Mathematically, Witten is prolifically clever, but in the development and integration of fundamental physics with empirical and experimental physics, and with astronomy and cosmology, the name of Witten will be forgotten within fifty years.
Hawking is not at the same level as Einstein and Newton, IMO.
Here because of Rogan
What has he done / found which has been tested using the scientific method?
Well, if you want something that has been tested, then as I have mentioned in the video, he did a photon photon deep inelastic scattering calculation that was tested later.
Moreover, his paper on AdS/CFT (also mentioned in the video) was very important in development of AdS/CFT and AdS/CFT was used to predict the viscosity of quark gluon plasma (where other methods failed) and it was tested in early 2000s at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider).
@@Phymaths So nothing related to String theory? So nothing which he has done which is related to String Theory has anything at all to do with science and the scientific method? I'm glad we agree he is not really a scientist because he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he has done.
@@markboggs746did you just ignore the comment? smoothbrain
@@98danielray Did you just ignore my reply? I will post it again, perhaps you would like to reply to it rather than casting insults while failing to use capital letters in your sentences? Here is the message again:
"So nothing related to String theory? So nothing which he has done which is related to String Theory has anything at all to do with science and the scientific method? I'm glad we agree he is not really a scientist because he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he has done.!"
Do you agree that he does not use the scientific method for the vast majority of what he does and has done?
Or not?
Simple question. Try to answer
Perhaps you think he has? Explain that?
Sir, this is a McDonalds
😅
Do I have any questions? No, none at all. I understood everything perfectly.
Ok if you are actually saying this, then I am glad to know that. If this comment is sarcastic, then I would say that sure, this video is at a popular level, omitting many details out. If you want to read about more details, then I can recommend recources to read (depending on the topics that you want to study).
It seems Witten has all his Eureka moments aboard an aeroplane.. We should pay him to stay constantly airborne …
If my father/mother was a physicist and proper guidance, i might have been witten.
Holy fuck he learned GR in 10 days.. that's unreal
His physical presence must be unusual for such a mind... you can already see this in the stiffness of his joints as he walks, the regularity of the scull, and one can compare the subtlety of his gaze and soft voice to the eye of a storm.
The guy might be a genius, but String Theory might be all wrong. It's been ~50 years since psychics hasn't produced any novel type of tech. So who cares who went were, who did what. What are going to do with science today+moving forth. ... nice video. 😅
It is hard to explain how wrong you are. But it is simple to write down string theory is "wasted time"
Real life Sheldon Cooper
Really hope that string theory will come out to be successful , otherwise so many brilliant minds semi-wasted their time …
You have got to be kidding, nobody can be that smart?
This isn't "Smart" guy, this is Intelligence.
Intelligence is based on the amount of information we can store and how we connect that information.
Yes, he is that Intelligent.
I would like a follow-up video showing prediction from his works that were later verified expeimentally.
I won't have to do that if you want a piece of work that was verified experimentally. If you look at 4:07 you will see that I mentioned a photon-photon scattering calculation done by him, which was tested experimentally. Moreover, his most cited paper is his paper on AdS/CFT. AdS/CFT was used to predict the behavior of the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma and at that time, all other methods failed to give the correct prediction.
The prediction of AdS/CFT about the viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma was tested in the mid-2000s by heavy ion collider experiments. So, here are two things that have some experimental proof. Surely everything that he has worked on doesn't have experimental proof yet but some of the things that he worked on do have experimental proof. Thanks.
Witten has been, and continues to be, overvalued. He incorrectly invested his efforts in String Theory, which has since become a subject of ridicule. Moreover, he failed to secure a Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award in physics. Given the high expectations placed on him since the 1990s, one would have anticipated significant contributions from him that could merit a Nobel Prize, but such achievements have not materialized, and it seems unlikely they ever will.
Witten by his own admission tried not to tackle particularly difficult problems (i.e., ones without a likely solution in his lifetime). What does that tell you?
Well that is not true. For example, one problem that he has been working on since mid 70s (and I also mentioned it in the video) is quark confinement. Quark confinement still doesn't have a solution but he still thinks about this problem (as he said it in a recent interview with Jim Al Khalili on spotify). So, that is one of the problems (but not the only one) that isn't gonna be solved in his lifetime (most probably) but he still worked on it a lot.
@@Phymaths Witten was no Einstein concerning difficult problems and the time spent on them. Witten was more into promoting himself and collecting rewards for his self-promotion. Those are the facts.
We should put him on a plane that touches down only a couple of times per year, so he can explain what he discovered on the flight.
Great video! But 19 minutes in I am waiting for any physics to come in, so far only mathematics 😀
Thanks but these are the things related to physics that you might have missed in those 19 minutes.
1) His Ph.D. work on asymptotic freedom
2) His work on deep inelastic photon scattering, which was later confirned by experiment (also mentioned in the video)
3) His work with Seiberg which made progress in solving the quark confinement problem (which is a big problem in QCD). It didn't solve the quark confinement problem because they assumed another symmetry to hold but the original quark confinement problem is to be solved without that symmetry.
4)His work on positive energy theorem was done for General Relativity.
5) His paper (which is his most cited paper) on AdS/CFT and AdS/CFT is something that has actually made tested predictions. For example, it was the only thing that could explain the observed viscosity of quark gluon plasma. The prediction of AdS/CFT was confirmed in early 2000s. For the full story of this dicovery, read pages 122 to 130 of J.Conlon's book "Why String Theory". Thanks.
@@Phymaths thanks. Yea I was trolling a bit. First three are obviously big steps in physics. 4 and 5? I wouldnt put my money on that. Not sure why would anyone care about positive energy theorem in gr? Also I have been told that AdS/CFT so far really didnt do anything usefull by someone who knows better (Caltech professor) but I dont know, I am just humble experimentalist. I know Maldacena original paper is like the most ever cited one but has that ever lead to anything? Sure, it was a path well worth following, just didnt pan out particularly.
@@tomaschlouba5868"just trolling"
this is excellent
Thanks for your feedback, and thanks for watching.
He is a great among greats, perhaps even among them.