The genius of Edward Witten | Cumrun Vafa and Lex Fridman
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2021
- Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Cumrun Vafa: String Th...
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Cumrun Vafa is a theoretical physicist at Harvard.
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"I dual-majored in math and physics at MIT"
"I got my Ph.D in physics from Princeton working with Ed Witten"
"By the time I got to Harvard..." Dude, stop. You're absoultely CRUSHING it
I can't even get accepted at a community collage.
>_
@@shmookinsyou and me both
@@shmookins maybe because it’s a college. Not a collage lol
Dr. Vafa was working with and being advised by Edward Witten. Undoubledly there would have been some insecurities forming and now that he's able to speak--as an expert--to us regular 'still wiping our butts with dry paper' folks... let's give him the validation he's looking for and the respect he deserves from accomplishing those feats!
*I just finished Season 2 of Frasier, hence the psycoanalysis. I've never met Dr. Vafa and I barely understand emotions beyond "I'm hungry." Ipsofacto, most of that was in jest. I've been awake since Friday and I keep pondering what it would be like to hang out with four K9 police dogs while I was writing that. What I'm getting at is ignore me, I'm talking about of my arse. :)
@@shmookins you must first learn how to write "college"! Then its straight on!
Rogan's podcast yesterday with Eric Weinstein brought me here lol. Was the first I'd heard of Mr. Witten. Awesome!
Yupp as soon as Eric said he was afraid of him I paused and went digging 🤣😂🤣
Ditto. From within the constellations of knowledge we draw the same lines
Guy is scared to debate this guy
I heard Witten’s voice on JRE before I saw him and he sounded like a Bond villain! 😂
Same, frigging fascinating
It’s been a long time since the last time I enjoyed an interview as much as this one. The passion he has and the way he describes everything, the fluency, the vocabulary.. amazing.
This is a brilliant explanation of the difference between rigour and physical intuition that so many physicists talk about
But how come, physical intuition correct the mathematical consistency and rigour. Isn't it intuition just gambling? Math is a way to reduce the unpredictability.
Witten is only mathematical games of which the link to reality is still a promise. That's all.
Proud to say I understood some of the words used in this video.
Lex's eyes were glazing over. I think he understood a few also
Love when these guys go into detail, gets you a sense of what it's really like workin on these things
Search for a TH-cam video of 1979 Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam discussing with Ed Witten - fascinating to listen to now. In 1990, I asked Salam what area shouid I work on - and he mentioned Chern-Simons theory in mathematics. I asked him who were the other great hope apart from ed Witten and he mentioned Cumrun Vafa. Now the other half of Chern-Simons is the famous mathematicain James Simons, who set up the hedge fund Rentech. And of course Vafa was hired by Rentech. Small world!
Absolutely amazing
Thanks for sharing..
This is such good advice to help learning and develop passion for a subject. Connecting theory and practicality demands creativity and I think that's where truly invested people stand out from those who learn stuff just for the sake of making a living with it.
Thanks for posting this interview, so interesting to have personal insight into working alongside Edward Witten.
While Vafa is a fantastic physicist, I think it's ironic that one of the things that Vafa gets most credit for, topological string theory, is actually Witten's idea. Vafa is responsible for Mirror Symmetry, for F theory, for various brane constructions, he's also a great physicist of the top rank, but Topological String Theory screams Ed Witten so much, just in the mathematical construction, it's like he signed it with his name by creating it, even though I always heard it attributed to Vafa. The reason it's Witten is not just that he wrote the first paper, it's also the twisted supersymmetry construction, turning it into a BRST charge, which is the construction Witten milked to get Donaldson invariants, topological field theories and knot invariants, and also Topological Strings, it's just what Witten did in that era of the late 80s.
I have no idea what you just said but I'm inclined to agree.
What are you talking about
@@sibusisofaya7874 The misattribution of ideas in physics.
@@annaclarafenyo8185 lol I'm in Finance so I'm lost
@@sibusisofaya7874 It's not about physics dude, you shouldn't be lost. It's about who deserves credit for what. Vafa for Mirror Symmetry, Witten for Topological String Theory. Sheesh.
Man i would love if you could get Edward on the show :) Im afraid of his intellect in a good way
Don't be scared, homie.
@@Dave-qi3ft I agree he is abit alien but i guess thats the price you pay with a brain like that :) I still want him there ,he is interesting to me.
Why afraid? I don't understand why Eric on joe rogans podcast said he was afraid
@Mr M I think he was touching on the fear of debating with him, a man who can out think you at every turn, any and all arguments and improved upon, even In your perspective he improves upon but ultimately breaks it down and out thinks your thunk and proves you are wrong or not up on his level at every turn.
In other words, you are at ground level surrounded by a 6ft bush and he's standing on Everest with a full 360 view, able to zoom In on the ants.
@@ashleybritton644 Na i think he meant that he is an alien ,pretty sure :)
Absolute legend. Got an email from him years back still make my day
@4:30 I loved this little anecdote. Sounds like Witten is unafraid to function as a platonist. The theoretical physicist who has a platonistic perspective has this power that every formalist and logical positivist cannot comprehend. They can of course be completely nuts and go way off the rails into fancy (like just every neoclassical economist ever), but they have this creative capacity they permit themselves. Everyone has it, but others do not permit themselves to exercise it fully.
sir, i completely understood your comment
Achronicmasterbeater
Dumb this down I have pee drying on my leg
@@jimmydean5663 you should pee on it to rinse it off.
I'm not sure how that relates to the Kardashian's but I think I get your point .
i recently learn how to solve a ribik's cube in less than 10min, so i can relate to Mr Witten.
Joke aside, i'm glad our society is free enough for those people to rise and in a long terme be able to improve the live of millions.
As an amateur psychologist deeply interested in remarkable individuals, I am SO thrilled to have seen this! Thank U!!!
Vafa is a great physicist (one with a nice personality) in his own right, and very much worth listening to!
Thanks for your interview! Very informative! Is it possible to invite Ed Witten to have an interview with? I believe it will be rather exciting!
2:28 Yes, I felt the same, I starting studing Physics and I change to Maths because of the "lack of rigor". It troubled me too.
As an arts kid: how did you recognize the lack of rigor? What sort of person do you need to be to be able to recognize that lack of rigor, and act upon it like vafa here? Like, I guess, how did u notice the lack of vigor? And did you attempt to reframe it somehow?
The tale of a young mathematician learning the power of hand-waving~
Ha ha
My God, these intellectuals live and think in a different dimension.
How incredible
6:36 Fyi - The Calabi-Yau manifold - That's the geometry you see when on 5-Meo-Dmt
if my parents called me cumrun im rioting
I was unhappy in my 1st Chemistry degree - wanting to understand everything , but not having time to study the deep mathematical foundations of the physical chemistry I was being taught
I have the same feeling when studying chemistry. The issue is that we don't have the chance to learn the physics behind so I feel like everything I learnt in chemistry is mostly memorizing.
I enrolled for Masters in Chemistry and attended the classes for a month. I never knew how did I ended up choosing Chemistry while Physics has always been my love and life. I had acquired acute depression and loss in life. One day I quickly decided that I must necessarily leave chemistry and go into physics. I walked up to my father and said to him I want to quit chemistry and want to start all over with physics. He supported me and asked me if this is really what I want to do and I said definitely it is. Since then I have been studying physics like my life depends on it and now I am happy and learn something new each day.
Vafa’s taken the career path that i want to take exactly. Go to MIT, dual major in math and physics because i love both so much, go to a good grad school for physics, and continue studying math and physics for the rest of my life. i can really relate to him
Good luck!!
Oh you mean Ol Cumrun 😂
The guy is not even a mathematician 🤦🏽♂️ I’m glad he’s getting recognition now. I known about this dude for a while and I can say… he’s fucking smart AF!!!
Why are we just now hearing about this man? He's 71 years old ffs.
maybe because of his name bro, u think they wanna pump that mainstream ?
Because the Western World likes Dumb. Why listen/pay attention to this Man when we have important pastimes, like, Story Time with Drag Males, Love Island, Praising males swimming against Females and beating them. Oh, and Biden's always a great listen!
because you only get information from Joe Rogan and Lex Friedman lmao if you had absolutely any interest in physics you would already know his name
@@dannygibson2597 I'm 4th year physics student and I just got to know him
Great story
Good stuff, very interesting...! Academic barriers are being broken...
Can we possibly hope you do an Edward Witten interview or is this too much to ask?
Please interview Ed Witten
Also an All Pro Tight End for
The Dallas Cowboys?
This dude is well rounded.
Tight end?
@@reimannx33 lol.
Yes
No, that would Jason Witten. Different first name. You get no credit for completely mismatching the first name.
Booo to you and pal, boo.
Edward Witten is your favorite physicists favorite physicist
We should talk about his father and what he knows about his work… Louis Witten worked on anti-gravity for the government since the 50’s…
Well his name contains the word wit.
Edward and upward
Aptronym
meanwhile ''cumrum"
@@StephenMcmonagle-dv4kfcumrun vs. ramamandeep
😭@@StephenMcmonagle-dv4kf
Very deep and thoughtful.
Also ' Cumrun ' .
Dude as an Iranian I have no idea why he chose to write his name like that in English! Everyone with that name write it as Kamran! But a true genius otherwise!
This is why I love America so much. I'm in Iranian immigrants. And we came here and America gave us the opportunity to have someone like me become a physician. And it gave someone like him the opportunity to be a professor this is how stupid the government of Iran is they're losing all this brain power just like the Germans lost the Einsteins of the world Iran lost their best brains. And America was wonderful enough to accept us.
This new challenges between the differing views in physics is much better than the previous mantra of E=mc².
Like, it's useful, but it doesn't explain everything for a reason. Like, there is something beneath Relativity and Quantum Physics. The same way that JavaScript and HTML are under a webpage, but also alongside that there might be Django or Java under it. But, you are still going to have limits within JavaScript/HTML/Django-Java. Because, underneath that, ultimately under the webpage it's zeros and ones. And even under the zeros and ones there will be anomalies, because where did the zeros and ones come from?
Physics has to keep that mentality. Religion has largely abandoned it. If we could get religion to bring that mentality back, I think that we could see the same kind of progress in society that we see in physics and labs.
Eric wienstien comments brought me here . 😊 🙏
don't go glassy-eyed, he is telling you about his epiphany using the type of approach Ed Witten demonstrated to him as an undergrad.
i searched brown-nosing and this was the first result
Is every planet has der own temperature? Do gravity affect different temperatures?
30-year stagnation in physics... SOMETHING STINKS HERE
Physics seems less straight forward than math, like a gathering of evidence to support a claim or a confluence of triggers that point to a general idea, rather than a precise numeric point or equation that can be tested and verified. Super interesting, always love the podcast and appreciate the guest!
XKCD made this point in a classic comic comparing maths, physics, chemistry and bibiology.
"a precise numeric point or equation that can be verified" is literally way more the job of an experimental physicist than any mathematician. math proves proppositions about abstract structure. it has nothing to do with what you said, unless you mean what is generally attributed to "applied math" or, morw generally, "scientific computing"
I wish I were smart enough to truly understand this stuff.
Same!
But a retarded person might think "I wish I could understand the newspaper"
We understand the newspaper, but it doesn't make us happier
Which stuff?
The example was helpful. I would’ve never understood all the philosophical explanations he was giving without it.
Like the Gaussian pill box trick?
So disappointed that they didn't brought up Arithmetic in the conversation.
I know this isn't what he meant but I love the idea of mathematics as "applied physics", lmao
Lex had no idea what this guy was talking about
I wanna know what He says after three Hits of DMT....
a very interesting channel, no doubt.
Name is crazyy
*inhales sharply for 11 seconds* NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
String theory is a tenuous concept at best. Bridging the gap between the macro/cosmic world and quantum mechanics will require the collective effort of both theorists and practioners using what we already know from the Standard Model and making reasonable extrapolations from it.
He also has around 100000 citations..
Amazing
If you listen to this carefully what he said is very deep connection between math and physic just very deep.
When will you have Witten on?
I'm surprised there aren't any Podcasts with him on. Maybe he's busy working...
What is the probability that Edward Witten beats Michael Jordan one on one?
Depends on how personal Michael takes the challenge
@@woodsidejaybroholy fuck, most underrated comment of the past 5 years. I think you are the Witten of comments dude! 😂
@Jay Torr thanks! That's more than I deserve, but I'll take it.
@@woodsidejaybro you owe me half a can of coke zero that came through my nose when read your comment
@Jay Torr fair trade, in my opinion.
Rogan podcast brought me here as well.
Imagine if he decided to take a break from M-Theory for a little bit and shift focus to quantum information.
I do think having a Bachelor's in Arts (History and linguistics) degree made his approach to Physics and Math both elegant and unique. In other words, he brought to the table a lot more than someone with a Bachelor's in Science would.
I doubt they had any bearing whatsoever to his scientific work.
Most physicists can and do read history. Steve Weinberg read Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" three times!
Those disciplines only require literacy and a bit of basic verbal reasoning
@@edwardjones2202 I would pay more heed to the fact that he undertook entire 3 years of an arts degree, which is undoubtedly more rigorous than delving into literature occassionally and as a past time.
But even that aside, his first degree being an arts degree very likely helped keeping his creative chakras open to work wonders for him during his later years as a physicist.
@@nephronpie8961
Theoretical physics and maths is intensely creative and rigorous.
A history degree is not rigorous. History is amazing and interesting and I love it. History can be studied with more or less rigour, but it's not "rigorous", especially for someone like Witten.
Lastly, undergraduate history is essentially clerical work: putting together information from existing sources and debates with a little elementary reasoning thrown in. Nothing that would have sharpened his analytical tools more than the simple learning of (never mind development of) math and physics.
@@edwardjones2202😅😂😂
Rubbish. Go talk to a cognitive scientist with a PhD in physics (whose dad has a nobel prize in physics) like Douglas Hofstadter (inventor of the Hofstadter Butterfly) and he will tell you that you are WRONG.
When neuroscientists studied Einsteins brain they noticed that his corpus callosum, the thin membrane that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain (the so called arts/humanities part of the brain with the math/science part of the brain), was MUCH denser than the average human.
Einstein famously read an insane amount of books - Shakespeare, Goethe (who he considered the greatest German intellect of all time - owned everything Goethe ever wrote), poetry, studied history, anthropology even.
And psychometricians have pointed out that on the SAT scores of MANY Nobel Prize winners in the sciences they do exceptional well on verbal reasoning.
So, no, you're wrong. Very wrong. Einstein read and understand Kants Critique of Pure Reason at the age of 12.
That's hardly mathematics but requires a DENSE understanding of words and their referents.
We are slowly but surely discovering that verbal reasoning feeds mathematical reasoning and vice versa.
Language itself, is paradoxically a mathematical construct; but without language there is no mathematics.
It's a chicken-egg question: which has greater primacy Literacy or Numeracy.
My best conjecture, given what we know about Darwinian evolution, is that literacy came first. But if Max Tegmark's theory of the 'mathematical universe' turns out to be true then perhaps nature - and therefore everything - is fundamentally mathematical.
Reading non mathematical books allows one to ANALOGIZE (read Hofstadter for more information on this).
My 2 cents.
@@nephronpie8961 Newton was VERY well read for his time on non-mathematical subjects. As was Leibniz. As was Descartes and Fermat. Einstein was VERY well read in philosophy, Shakespeare and Goethe and enjoyed reading books (he met and read Kafkas work) and playing the violin.
I thoroughly believe Wittens DEEP understanding of history, politics (he is a Democrat and worked for McGovern), linguistics (a fascinating field in itself), literature gave him the cognitive seeds to be more creative in mathematics and physics, the same way it gave Einstein an edge over his contemporaries.
Einsteins deep knowledge of Machian philosophy, and that of Hume, allowed him to see the equivalence principle which has been staring every human being in the face for thousands of years:
A falling man does not feel his own weight. ANYBODY could've conceived of that, but it wasn't until Einstein.
Einsteins ability to solve the tea lead paradox, another puzzle that was staring a lot of great minds in the face but they didnt solve, I think is yet another example of the benefits of an eclectic, variegated intellect.
Well said!
P.S. It's basically IMPOSSIBLE to get into an elite school like MIT or Princeton without both stellar verbal and math scores so I suspect, cognitively, the brain is invoking elements of both in neuroprocessing.
I like counting up to twenty ,slowly
Nice!
Have we determined the “frequency” of vibrating strings in string theory?
Have we determined if strings vibrate in and out of a particular dimension. Perhaps the vibration frequency crosses multiple dimensions.
Rogans broadcast got me on this Witten rabbit hole
Eddie is the Shepherd and Vafa and friends are the sheep that follow.....to a precipice.
I have ABSOLUTLY NO IDEA WHAT THESE BRILLIANT MINDS ARE TALKING ABOUT, BUT HELL IT SOUND GOOD. As soon as I thought I was getting somewhere, I lost it again. It a whole other world these guys live in. Going back to Biden babbeling on, which I also dont really understand but its a good Laugh😂😂😂❤
Rogan. Yeap. Never heard of Witten and now I'm in a fucking foxhole.
Dr. Witten "paints and sculpts" new Math using Physics as a model, like a Michelangelo ... but there is a dire need for the reverse: use existing Math to advance Physics, like Einstein did with help from Grossmann ... or Feynman, without much "respect" for rigor, but with deep insight and new ideas ahead of the existing Math ...
Not me trying to understand what the hell is rigorous in maths 😂😂
He doesn’t explain clearly what makes something rigorous
A double major of math and physics at M.I.T?! That's the best you could do?! Come on man!
I am going to pretend I understood everything he said.
😂
Omg this man is great
01:55 his life was impacted in a profound way by Mr Witten. He learned from Mr Witten the art of wasting time over a theory, which, either his "genius" mind truly couldn't grasp, or his "genius" mind couldn't accept it to be false and look for something else.
Physics lacks rigor, because it is in fact harder than math. The rules are dictated by Nature. Math is a game we invent, and the rules are designed by us.
You don't have to work with someone like Witten to recognize the coherence of physics concepts. Any one who has read Landau & Lifshitz should be deeply impressed by it.
Sorry- before all else, can we just confirm this guy’s name is “Cumrun?” This is coming from someone named “Barney Cockburn,” on my birth certificate. Does he have me beat?
If you have too good of a Cumrun you might start to feel your Cockburn. Honestly it's a tough call, I think you guys are tied
Alot of J’s have been top physicists
So let it be Witten, so let it be done.
Does Witten use chatgpt?
Lmao, nah. ChatGPT uses him.
and what happened to Ed?
Dude only has one button on his button up polo
私はモノポールブラックホールが存在すると思います。私はストリング理論は、一般的な関数と一般的な幾何学に還元されると予想します。私は光子に質量があると思います。
when he started talking about physics, i just realized how dumb i am because i couldnt understand anything
Wow, didn't know Vafa was the one who conjectured the mirror symmetry
Yeah! I thought it was Greene and Plesser
OK I will disclose a secret to the world: Edward Witten is a alien, transported from Orion to earth to help us develop in Math.
Well, duh...my thoughts exactly...😏
I'm terrified of this man.
why
Eric's boogeyman
rogan brought me here
I wonder why Eric Weinstein doesn't agree?
Because Eric Weinstein thinks He, himself is the smartest person in the world... Go watch some of Ed Wittens lectures and you'll see Weinstein is a moron in comparison to Witten😅 not even close... Ed Witten is considered one of the greatest minds in all of history... Do some research aside from String Theory...
wtf is this guy talking about at 7:16 🤣🤣
Mirror symmetry
Sounds like blowing a lot of smoke to me. So Witten was his advisor, and they are both very smart guys I'm sure - just like anyone working at that level in physics or mathematics - but aside from the accolades and praises - what major problem in physics has Witten actually solved?
"Everybody else at that level." There is probably a handful if anyone at Witten's level.
solved anomalies in QFT. quantum effects that violate classical symmetries. his work was crucial in the context of gauge theories and supersymmetric theories. not to mention BCFW recursion, topological quantum computing, etc. even if string theory is all nonsense, the mathematical tools and techniques developed in its pursuit have already proven to be valuable across several fields.
... but string theory is donuts bro
Cumrun..what an unfortunate translation in English.
These people's are good smart me like much ya
what
Can he change the oil in a car? Everyone is stupid at something.
Hold on this guys name is Cumrun? Bruh
Eric Weinstein is terrified of this man
Edward Witten knows the string theory is wrong but political was told to push it to the next level
String theory is not wrong. It is incomplete.
Nothing is wrong, nothing is true until it can be proven with experiments. We don't have that kind of technology
What has this genius produced?
Things you can't understand
I would also add never
They will always say "things you cannot understand". Which is code for - almost nothing. He's a string theory guy. String theory is worthless as far as anyone can tell.
@@ivankaramasov try us....
@@aintgonnahappen I can't understand it.