#370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love

Edward Frenkel is a mathematician at UC Berkeley working on the interface of mathematics and quantum physics. He is the author of Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

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EPISODE LINKS:

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OUTLINE:

Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

(00:00) – Introduction

(05:54) – Mathematics in the Soviet Union

(16:05) – Nature of reality

(27:23) – Scientific discoveries

(40:45) – Observing reality

(56:57) – Complex numbers

(1:05:42) – Imagination

(1:13:33) – Pythagoreanism

(1:21:28) – AI and love

(1:34:07) – Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems

(1:54:32) – Beauty in mathematics

(1:59:02) – Eric Weinstein

(2:20:57) – Langlands Program

(2:27:36) – Edward Witten

(2:30:41) – String theory

(2:36:10) – Theory of everything

(2:45:03) – Mathematics in academia

(2:50:30) – How to think

(2:56:16) – Fermat’s Last Theorem

(3:11:07) – Eric Weinstein and Harvard

(3:18:32) – Antisemitism

(3:38:45) – Mortality

(3:46:42) – Love