Here are the timestamps. Please check out our sponsors to support this podcast. 0:00 - Introduction & sponsor mentions: - Headspace: headspace.com/lex to get free 1 month trial - The Jordan Harbinger Show: ru-vid.com - Squarespace: lexfridman.com/squarespace and use code LEX to get 10% off - Allform: allform.com/lex to get 20% off 1:51 - Difference between math and physics 4:34 - Evolution of quantum mechanics 7:52 - Can mathematics lead humanity off track 8:51 - Beauty in mathematics 14:10 - Philosophers using symmetry 20:04 - How can ancient geometry be used to understand reality 23:16 - Key ideas in the history of physics 26:09 - Einstein's special relativity 29:46 - Physicists building intuition 37:44 - Best work by Einstein 39:28 - Quantum mechanics 49:30 - Quantum gravity 51:45 - String theory 1:07:54 - 10th Dimension 1:14:32 - Skepticism regarding string theory 1:25:37 - Key figures in string theory 1:29:56 - String Theory's Nobel Prize 1:33:01 - Edward Witten 1:41:39 - String Theory Landscape & Swamplands 1:50:29 - Theories of everything 2:04:55 - Advice for young people 2:07:57 - Death
Really grateful for the voice you bring to the global community right now Lex. Thank you! Ps. The @BitClout community are getting the decentralised future of social media ready for ya my man. 😉💯🔥
I major in theoretical physics and I gotta say, he is without a doubt one of the brightest and most talented physicists out there in recent years. I couldn't stop listening to his interesting stories and philosophy and watched this entire video to the very end. It was such a pleasure to hear directly from the guy, and I appreciate you Lex for doing this interview.
What a special interview! Unlike most other physicists you're likely to see on a podcast (and there are many good ones), this isn't a guy who's taking a break from research. Hard hitting papers by him come out all the time. And if you give a talk about something he's worked on before, it comes back to him in an instant and leads to a huge discussion.
@@MMATopGs - I lean towards Persia(n), myself. I had a couple Calculus & Chemistry classes with two guys (roommates) from Persia/Iran. Both Atheists, BTW.
@@MMATopGs people like to identifying with winning ...Persian empire was way more successful than the current Iranian. Government...kinda like how everybody is a Tom Brady fan ....or laker fan...
Finally someone who explains it completely in timeline order and with examples that non professional can grasp he is smarter than genius great good man you good too Lex
I've tried to read/understand physics and frequently feel incapable of grasping concepts. I'm not college educated but became interested after reading about CERN.
Cumrum is awesome. You can tell he has actual expertise by the way he describes the mechanics of the equations. That type of expertise only comes through thousands & thousands of hours of pounding on your craft.
‘It takes an intelligent person to explain complicated things is a simple manner’ - The fact that I can understand a fair chunk of this is testsmount to the intelligence and intellect of these two incredible men!
Grammar seems dece, you're fine. Typical mildly above average intelligence (maybe way more! Maybe way less! Nevermind!) Acutely aware of your own stupidity. Just like me!
Among my favorite interviews so far. Cumrun Vafa's clarity of thought shows deep understanding of physics and his enthusiasm is contagious. I listened over and over to his examples borowing intuition in 2D and 3D to glean intuition of higher dimensional objects. I will come back to this interview and rewatch it some day.
Compared to Eric Weinstein, he's a lot more clear and understandable. Also he's quite balanced. What I've heard abt academia from Weinstein, I'd say Cumrun is total opposite of that.
Eric Weinstein is nowhere close to the same league as Vafa. Vafa is one of the most respected physicists in the world. Weinstein is somebody who makes appearances on Joe Rogan and here ranting about cancel culture and academia. It is an insult to mention them in the same sentence. Real physicists don't take Weinstein's geometric unity seriously, just like Garrett Lisi's E8 theory. They are only given attention because people like Lex and Joe Rogan give them a platform as if the theory is equally valid, since they have just as little understanding as a non-physicist that it's not taken seriously by the particle physics community. String theory has its own issues with experimental evidence, but at least there is orders of magnitude more mathematical consistency than crackpot theories like geometric unity.
This is first time I've heard someone explain higher dimensional physics in a way that I think I can almost understand it. A superior teacher for sure.
Love these deep dives Lex. This kind of abstract thinking fills me with joy for no tangible reason whatsoever like taking a ride on a bicycle with no destination.
Lex, your podcast is a gift to the world. I don't think anyone has done more to help intellectual discourse than you, at least not in this global scale. Cheers :)
Please, tie me up, folks, it's so hard to resist the temptation. The puns just keep coming into my head. I'm gonna go and do some breathing exercises, or go run (on a clean road), before I fail Lex once again.
Wow. Cumrun Vafa is my new favourite theoretical physicist. Not easy to make this stuff intelligible. His philosophical prowess and enthusiasm shine through. Brilliant!
and we are not scared...now I am not scared in 11 dimensions! I listened to Lex and Mr. Vafa all day. I can't get enough of it. Try it. You may stumble on more and more great stuff. Thanks a million!
Wow! I learned so much about String Theory from this Podcast. Cumrun paints such a lovely and transparent picture of the 'Canvas' in which life emerges. Thank you so much for all of your Podcasts with all of the incredible humans on it. I enjoy experiencing your creations so much. I look forward to exploring new horizons through your videos. I love you.
Lex you should do another episode with Cumrun there is something really profound to the way he explains and paints the picture of things.. I enjoyed so much this episode thank you!
As a physician, I dedicated my life to studying the human body and mind, rather than the outside world, and it's always fascinating to listen to the ones who did the opposite. Especially on this level. I want to point out that it's the consciousness in the first place that gives rise to these theories. And to unify the "outside" and the "within" is quite an easy leap. Conscious experience in the brain is based on exactly the same rules that govern the world.
Theres a symplistic but profound difference between wound and unwound strings on musical instruments, not all strings sound the same or bend the same. Since strings vibrate, they bend stiffer when "wound" and sound richer, they can be "flat-wound" being smoother and warmer, its not "only" that they are strings, but "round wound" or "flat wound" make a huge variation in vibrational difference in the limited constraints of 3 spacial dimentions. In electronics , some wire is braided, some wire is twisted, some wire is sleeved, some wire is coaxial, like a wire inside a wire braided sleeve, there is also triax cable, it seems like string theory needs some common pedestrian input, if it has obvious benefits and uses. If a "wound string" is ancedotally better and/or distictly different, it makes sense that string within a sleeve string, within another sleeved string, whether round-wound or flat-wound, it would make a huge difference, but the real "gravity" of my example😂 is if dark matter was what was flat wound or round wound on the strings or if dark matter was the sleeve around a "coaxial string" type string theory, then there could be a super position of dark matter and baryonic matter happening to create all the extra mass in the universe. Im sure nobody cares or ever reads these comments.😂😂😂
I guess because of his background like Salam they are often interested in philosophy & tolerant towards religion; this was also my experience with a graduate student classmate from Iran.
@@barren8589 definitely! we Iranians (of course not people you see in news from Iran😊) love equilibrium and interaction between ideas in order to achieve more complete forms! We're not in one place in terms of concepts, even from geographical point of view we're neither east nor west! (Mesopotamia)in "kurosh (cyrus) and "darush"age we were almost anything like greek to indian to african thought plus mithraism and ...even in practice and political aspect those races lived together in peace many years under empire of cyrus!
Lex, just wanted to say thankyou for consistently producing fantastic podcasts for the past few months. I absolutely love your humor, insight, thoughtfulness and empathy. Keep up the great work! 👌😁
@@thebenc1537 Well that's what you hope, but when she learns why you named her Cumrun, she will run away from you to do something good for self & others hopefully.
No Peterson please. I don't find him intellectually compelling at all. The guy is an infinite generator of unfalsifiable word salad, and, at this point, I'm not even sure that Peterson himself knows what are his tangible claims.
You’re on fire Lex, Constantine last week and now Cumrun Vafa, two scientists whose work I greatly admire….awesome. The interview with Constantine was incredible, and it kept my mind occupied as I worked.
Sense of beauty/taste/expression almost seems to be our pattern-seeking part of our brains working out new material and ideas in a constant effort to grow, train and hone itself for beneficial outcomes in more practical fields, like physics, engineering, architecture, etc. Over a very long time our sense of beauty has been trained by our ancestors to learn an appreciation for symmetries because understanding and appreciating the relationship between asymmetries and symmetries is very conducive to broad success in life.
@@Arimaquinador would def be harder for Lex to conduct which makes it even more fun! Also, I am excited about all these on the edge ideas on the podcast but eventually agree with Sabine and her stance on keeping science and scientific discovery “effective” and within reason. And herself being “vigilant” about this is imho so useful. It’s so German too 😂. I love it
"This *greater environment into which you are emerging* is a physical reality governed by physical laws, the laws of nature that you are aware of. Do not concern yourselves here with the *possibilities of other dimensions* , for that will not be your need and concern. It is this greater reality in which humanity has always lived and in which your world has always existed that *must become your focal point now* ." *Life in the Universe* Chapter 1: *Facing a Greater Community of Life* by *Marshall Vian Summers*
cumrun's explanation of how string theory intuits higher dimensions by using our 3, describing how they would intersect at lower dimension finally let me understand those pictures I thought were silly, since to me they were obviously 3 dimensional shapes
This was such a great conversation. Dr. Vafa has a great way of explaining things. Most people when talking about QM would tell how weird it is and how modern physics is so counter intuitive but not really giving a true picture , it feels as if they are trying to force fascination by telling just a few bits and by sounding mystical but truly great scientists like Vafa, Witten, Susskind, Maldacena etc. avoid doing that and tell what it really is, within the constraint of talking to laymen, but the truth to me is much more satisfying and in fact very entertaining as compared to the mystical things.Thank you so much for the wonderful conversation.
Everything we know is wrong, but our approximations are getting better and better - (Cumrun Vafa 2021). The further you go in education, the more you understand how true this is - we basically know almost nothing, but we are getting better glimpses of the actual truths.
CVs enthusiasm about Planck scale strings is pure theory as Heisenberg's uncertainty kicks in at particle scales, that are astronomically larger than the Planck scales, except for a few measures, two being the Planck frequency and acceleration that are universally large? What about entropy and matter's universal homogeneity though, given that recent mapping of the cosmic web shows that matter is channeled into rotating and revolving, literally moving and twisting current filaments punctuated by what look like voids? Recent studies have the matter distribution in the universe looking more like a neural network or mammalian brain morphology rather than a homogeneous Brownian motion pool of entropy? Supermassive black holes and galaxies also get carried along like specks of dust in these massive cosmic filaments? Our improving technology is opening our eyes as we stare at the night skies, and depending on EM wavelengths and LIGO, daytime skies too?
Cumrun makes all these complicated ideas so simple. It is an absolute delight to watch him. Great questioning from Lex as well! Just a side comment: at 1:27:06 I think the 'Green' being referred to is Michael Green, a British String theorist who pioneered the subject in the 70s alongside Schwarz. He is also the author of the standard textbook in String Theory, co-authored with Schwarz and Witten. Brian Greene came later.
??Would you consider having Dr. Vafa and Dr. Wal Thornhill together to debate their perspectives? Your podcast, with your moderator skills, is the perfect venue. Thanks so much for these superb thinking/learning experiences.
This is amazing! It seems to be simple, but the certain things that I had not thought about before became clear. Theories are tools that people come up with to solve problems. Some less perfect than others, but you may never know which one is closer to the truth and which one is easier to improve, so it is better to improve yourself while working with all those of your interest, study new ones and try to apply them. Great talk. Lots of spiritual food for the mind.
Changes occur with a change of pattern. Steps took during a production like a machine insures quality When or if final inspections quality control issues a notice of a problem it has a easy solution from having a routine and the consistency it creates
Great interview, Lex. Hardy's assertion that 'Beauty is the first test: There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics' is thought-provoking, especially when considering both Hardy and Vafa's potential oversight of Ramanujan's formulas, which might not align with the type of beauty Vafa referred to. It's an interesting dynamic. It would be intriguing to explore their perspectives on Ramanujan's work. Also, I recommend considering an interview with Sabine Hossenfelder - it could offer fresh insights.
Yes! Thanks, Lex & Co. I actually understood most of this. Imagine if Cumrun was your Science teacher in highschool. The infinite reflections in two mirrors and fractals ,still trip me out, i was wondering how they would look in extra dimensions if possible.
This scientist have a lot of wisdom, one of the interviews more interesting but exausting for non-profesionals of the topic at the same time that I had seen.
