The conversation is sparkling! Historical footage of Abdus Salam, Dennis Sciama, Edward Witten and Paolo Budinich talking about physics. Note that the conversation took place in 1986, not 1990 as stated in the caption.
It’s beautifully filmed. You really capture the human element of these men who push the envelope of what is possible with regard to human cognition. Thanks for doing a great job.
I'm only speculating, but I think he may have a photographic memory. He occasionally seems to drift off to another place and speaks as if he's reading from a paper.
So Dirac had already known that if super symmetry was authentic, it would have already been discovered. Reimer's tension scale was super close, but he didn't include time. Mr. Whiten had a moment to go in another direction and didn't listen to Dirac. Edit, Witten
@@Perrydog101 agreed, if super symmetry was more than a concept, the tension scale would have included chronological intervals. The inclusion of the conception of time is indeed a dilemma with both Dirac and Reimer, and the tension scale in general. BTW I know nothing about Physics, (I hope I spelled that right)... I wanted to demonstrate how CHARLATANS like Deepak Chopra try to fake their own knowledge of Physics/Quantum Physics, with the sole purpose of appearing smart to sell more bullshit books. (I'm demonstrating it's not difficult to fake, because 99.99% of people cant tell the difference unfortunately)
It's kinda crazy how Witten, even as a young guy seems to hold court, with these older, eminent physicists almost deferring to him, asking him all the questions. Apart from his obvious physics expertise, Witten's knowledge of history and context of physics is pretty amazing.
Even if you take away all of his physics achievements, the mathematical consequences of his physics as well as his pure math papers (he's written quite a few) would make him one of the most reknowned mathematicians in the world. Amazing.
But yet he was somehow blinded by the utterly ret*rded idea of string theory, and helped lead physics down a long road to nowhere for multiple decades... strange how smart people can be so stupid, in his case with massive negative repercussions that have even stagnated the progress of humanity
After 4 years of this interview, Witten won the fields medal and you can see his passion and enthusiasm for Maths and Physics here...Sadly Abdusslam the noble laureate passed away in 1996 ...
after his death his grave was desecrated and while he was alive he was forced to live as a non muslim in Pakistan. If the pakistanis knew theire historic lore they would know all the troubles thry face now is because of the bad karma acrrued!
All dead except one, but yet here we are 36 years later, watching them as they are being alive talking to each-other for us to watch and listen. It's what you leave behind when you die that counts, if you do, you never really die.
sometimes unbelievable I mean our forefathers would never haver concieved such technological revolution as this digital revolution through which we are able to see the masters
Everything and everyone will fall into oblivion eventually. For some people like Witten, it will just take longer but zoom out on time and you won't see any difference between an ape, the average human being, Witten and any supposed super intelligence.
I get goosebumps when I listen to this conversation. I only understand it partly, but the notion that by the privilege of listening this you are at the forefront of science and understanding is simply stunning
Witten’s knowledge of physics, math and history runs circles around his piers. I’m convinced he must have a photographic memory because his recall of extreme detail is uncanny. And most exciting is his passion and love of the subjects and intellect, he gets almost giddy when he talks. You would expect fire to come out of his ears at times. His thought is palpable.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist and this is just a joke but if there is even one hyper-intelligent alien masquerading as a human on this planet I am certain Ed Witten is it. That was just a joke though. I did say "if" and that's an impossible if.
one of the greatest minds sitting in one room and discussing the origin of ideas. this is so beautiful. One can only be filled with wonder and amazement.
Interesting to visit 30 years after having a shared office next to Salam's. At. 11:00 Salam makes a reference to Chris Isham who never got into strings as far as I remember. At 19:00 Witten mentions Tom Kibble's cosmic strings - a beautiful idea, very big around 1990, not borne out by experiment. Kibble really deserved the Nobel for the Higgs mechanism for the later 1967 paper (Weinberg thought so). I do recall Salam giving a seminar on Chern-Simons which Witten had been pushing. And brings back memory of E8 - every 2nd seminar used to be on that.
Holy shit! It was quite a while ago when I received the answers to sooo many questions I had about physics, mathematics, and coming up with theories! THANK YOU for uploading this.
How much we miss in today's society with the scientists of today! We went from Dennis Sciama and Abdus Salam to Neil de Grasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss, a true loss for today's youth!
Yeah. Not many world class physicists have been successful at communicating to the masses. That's why Tyson, Kaku, et al get so much exposure. Feynman has probably been the BEST ever to communicate to the general public as an upper echelon WORLD CLASS physicist. I'm afraid that "today's youth" aren't that interested. Social media continues the dumbing down of the world.
Would it not be more accurate to say that we went from Sagan to Degrasse Tyson and from Abdus Salam, for exampel, to some of the many fine physicists of today who also primarily do scientific research?
Fredrik A Tyson has not published a paper in more than 2 decades. When he did publish a paper, I believe he was the 4th or 5th co-author... He does zero scientific research today.
***** Yes. I very much agree. Not only that, but social media has also made everyone into a scientific genius, so everyone thinks they know everything.
Ikjyot Singh Kohli There are some great physicist writing books out there for the masses (Weinberg, Lederman, etc), but the spokesman roles are consumed by Tyson, Kaku and a number of merely competent physicists. I think these spokesmen realized their limitations in the upper echelon of physics and decided to cash in instead. I don't have too much of a problem with that. We can still get great courses from Witten, Susskind and others. The thing that infuriates me the most are the quacks and utter crackpots out there who spread misinformation/conspiracy for profit. Many militant theists also add to the spread of misinformation.
Who knows then,one day this smart kid wiould be world smartest person or would be one of the great Theoretical physicist,and only physicist ever who won field madal in mathematics (equivalent to nobel prize). Ed Witten is a giant in his field.!! He is actually a genius.! 💜❤❤
Amazing video, thank you. I was lucky enough to be a student at Imperial College London and meet Abdus Salam when he won his Nobel prize in 1979. Also met Kibble who is mentioned a few times. Interestingly, they predict the detection of gravitational waves within 10 years - it took about 30 in the end.
I didn’t understand shit about what they’re saying but i watched the whole thing and I’m extremely fascinated by the sheer genus of Edward Witten, those people really make you feel dumb as hell
I too think Young Professor Witten's knowledge and sense of history of Physics and math (etc.) is, among other things, what makes him so charming and likeable... plus his humility, humor, and genuine love of discovery! ❤️😊
I think Witten would cringe at how romanticized he is in this comment section. I also think it is what hampers successful communication between himself and most people today. Not to take away from his stellar achievements, of course, he is brilliant. What is fascinating or surprising to me is how understable geniuses like him are, the same impression I have of Einstein. They do not have the airy view of themselves that people tend to have about them.
@@SoundsSilverHe's literally just calmly stating his scientific imaginings. How can you take that as narcissistic unless you are one of those people that think intelligence is arrogance? That's a profoundly American idea, cultures in other places don't have that association.
To think these conversations about String Theory took place in the mid-80s and then about 10 years later Witten would complete his M Theory research that showed that all the different superstring theories of this era were in fact all the same, in their limiting cases, of one unified theory!!!
“I’m not late - given the time dilation of postulated quantum gravity in a Higgs particle accelerator I’m early in a way you could never understand.” -Witten
Its a grate privilege that to see the geniuses talking .... thank you ......actually I thing that we are in the era of converting the mathematics to a physics .......and that indeed like a great victory to a human kind, it seem as there is a continuous sound saying that there is a deep connection between our biological system and the universe....... it seem we are not in the era where we make analysing for the physics of nature by the mathematics only ......
The occasion of this conversation seems to be the day when Witten was awarded the first Dirac Medal, as Salam said at 4:25, "Dirac, who we were celebrating today by giving Witten the first Dirac Medal." The award was announced on August 8, 1985. The ceremony may have happened in Feb 1986?
It's wild that 4 years after this conversation the Hubble telescope was launched and absolutely blew everyone's mind. Gonna have to go and find each of their reactions to hubble now 😂 great vid!
I love how Witten talks with his eyes half closed like he’s really thinking hard about stuff. It reminds me about me when I’m thinking hard about stuff and I try to relax so that my brain isn’t all overworking and missing the answers.
I love how a young Ed Witten holds the older guard of physics captive with his passion for sharing scientific nuance, beyond what they may have intuited.
I think Lie was originally looking for the Galois theory of differential equations of some sort? Peter Olver talks about it in his very well-written book on Applications of Lie Groups to Differential Equations.
@24:00 "Galactic center with threads coming out and the threads are 100 parsecs long" That's like 8 times the Kessel Run made by the Millennium Falcon.
I would like to ask the same thing. Closed caption or subtitles... Please!! English is not my first language and I'm working very hard to understand some of the things that are being said in this video. Help me! =)
I can see the Napoleon Dynamite persona based on a couple of Witten's traits. I love his level calm voice even though I have almost no comprehension of what he says.
