Physics 539: Topics in High Energy Physics offered by Professor Edward Witten in the fall of 2022 Problem Sets: www.ias.edu/sns/physics-539 Credits: Princeton Physics
0:34 stuff I don’t understand 4:54 stuff I don’t understand 12:31 stuff I don’t understand 37:48 stuff I don’t understand 51:52 stuff I don’t understand 1:10:12 stuff I don’t understand
I know what you mean, I just wanted to see what it would be like to take one of the hardest classes at one of the best universities taught by one of the smartest people in the world!
Honestly, I watched this in its entirety and I didn’t understand a single word in the entire time. Not one word. In fact, I dribbled at one point in a hazy day dream.
I love how he starts by asking if anyone has any questions from the last lecture. Not a soul said anything for quite a while, and I’d guarentee all of them didn’t understand half of what he would’ve covered 😆
It is the same in every country no one wants to admit that they are of average intelligence. Besides, no one can internalise complex teaching over 90 minutes.
I watched somewhere how all the accomplished Physicists worldwide hold Professor Edward Witten in highest of esteems and even they struggle to keep following up with him. To have opportunity to see his lessons online should be a great honor.
I’m astounded that in a country where brilliance of this caliber is to be found, over 70 million people look at a dumb psychopathic third rate Uber narcissist grifter and say to themselves yes!!!! That man is president quality
@@jonathaningram8157you'd still be going "ooga booga", living in a cave and smacking others with a club if it weren't for people like those in this video
To have all the answers would be impossible, the universe is infinite and as such can't all be observed, so nothing is ever certain@@jonathaningram8157
@@jonathaningram8157that’s not really astounding at all. There is no reason that the Universe should be comprehensible to our limited human brains, even to the smartest of us who build upon each other. It seems possible that without something like Artificial Superintelligence exponentially increasing the rate of our progress in understanding physics, there are facts about physics that humans could never figure out, even given a few more centuries of progress. And even if without Artificial Superintelligence, a few more centuries would be sufficient to “have all the answers” - which seems logically impossible to begin with - then we happen to have existed in the 21st century when physicists have come extremely far with their understanding of physics but not all the way to understanding everything.
Here’s the course description for PHY539 from the fall 2022 semester at Princeton: This course is devoted to topics of current interest at the interface of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Topics include singularity theorems, general properties of classical black holes, an introduction to information theory and to the entanglement properties of quantum field theory, and an introduction to black hole thermodynamics. Students are urged to prepare for the course by reading the lecturer's article "Light Rays, Singularities, and All That,'' which covers the subject matter of the first few weeks of the course.
I majored in microbiology, physics is what kept me out of engineering, it was very humbling. I am now old and feel I gained much from realizing my limitations. Parents, don’t lie to your children and tell them they can be whatever they want because they can’t.
@@iamthemossThat is funny … and true. I went to Rice in the 70s and had the same realization. Physics kept me out of physics. I settled for electrical engineering. Did fairly well in the coursework but knew that I could never be a top engineer. Not smart enough. Went and got a Wharton MBA and then Wall Street.
@redfordkobayashi6936, I wouldn't call Ed that, nor anyone else. His father however, was entertaining and almost blue collar like in how he taught. Easy going, able to relate, and down to earth. He remains to this day professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati. Ed is simply blessed. Hope to more work from him on Cern
Eric Weinstein said this guy is the Michael Jordan of physicists. His chalkboard game is off the charts. I subscribed to this channel. Maybe I’ll learn something by accident.
If you read Witten's Wiki page...in college, he first majored in history and linguistics and then worked as a journalist. Crazy to think, he had this untapped potential for physics at the time, and only discovered it when going back to school.
His father was a physicist, he studied physics since childhood, but ran away from the "family profession" until he realized that was where he had the most talent, and also, that 'tHooft and Polyakov had broken through, allowing the field to thrive again after the slump of the early 70s.
I spent most of the video scrolling through social media while using the lecture as background noise. Amazing. It takes real focus and dedication to do science. It's amazingly hard work.
This man is intimidating. My grandfather was a brilliant physicist, but his father was a universally brilliant chemist, who invented the urine test. His name was Charles C. Fulton (1900-1992). My grandfather used to say his dad couldn’t figure out why he was so dumb. That rocked me to my core. I took to jiu jitsu, and although there are unbeatable black belts within a gym, there are universal black belts that make other black belts look like white belts. I’ve come to realize whether it’s physics, jiu jitsu, piano or golf, the top one percent of the top one percent are a blend of natural gifts and relentless obsessive study.
Wow! I found an article talking about Mr. Fulton himself. It said that after retiring he took to pursue his interests in electronics.... so, is it true? And did you see him?
My favorite part of the lecture was when he said, "Space time is being bad." I can totally relate, I hate when my space time is being bad. Naughty, naughty.
It’s really impressive how many exams, how many physics Olympiads and how much of hard undergrad, grad and doctoral course-work the students would have accomplished to be taught from the legendary Edward Witten
I often feel the same way when talking with people. What seems obvious to me apparently is not, to them. That informs me I am not speaking with sufficient clarity. This is a challenge for subject matter experts. They are accustomed to the lexicon literally speaking for itself.
I've been learning about causal structure and the various singularity theorems of GR on my own for some time now. They don't teach this at my university. So it was very nice to see that there's several lectures on this from Princeton, even by none other than Ed Witten! Definitely going to take a look at these.
mad props to the people putting in work 💯 i’m making salary without an education. school was never my thing and sitting down listening to a teacher just made me think i was wasting my time. hope the best for everyone trying to pursue they’re dreams
I think my domain of dependence is greater than the space time that is bounded by my brain that is below this mans intelligence to both the future and the past. Just listening to him talk is somehow like a soothing white noise that helps me sleep.
I am a retired mechanical engineer, many, many hours of math and physics in college, over 45 years ago and I have to say this discussion is so over my head now...I literally dont know what the hell he is talking about.
Not just Eric but pretty much everyone says that. Sam Harris said it best "If you ask 100 physicists and asked who is the smartest, half will say leave me alone and the other half will say Witten'. Maybe he is related to me.
Just listening to Ed makes me realize just how stupid I am and intellectually a baby amongst men. I could study physics the rest of my life and never get far beyond the basics. This man has command of the subject that is just mind boggling
I once showed my girlfriend a page from a Wikipedia page about quantum mechanics . She took one look at it and said " What is this ? Some kind of a joke " ? A reasonable response .
The most replayed part is at minute 25.33 because, when you open the video, it's the most probable point(or random?) to fast forward among all the awesome moments
Meanwhile, I've even plunged into the enormous conceit of thinking that Witten is more of an actor than a physicist; a simple speculator with some knowledge of physics theories but lots of initiative: no lab, no experimentation, no way of testing, no verification, no new results or findings... I think Witten is NOT a scientist but a very imaginative storyteller whose topic is quantum physics.
@@rubicunduseratiudas1264 No new results or findings is not something anyone has ever said about Witten. 🤣 M-theory might turn out wrong, but so did Maxwell's assumptions of luminiferous ether and he _still_ revolutionised the understanding of electromagnetism and Maxwell equation are still used about everywhere...
"The questions make me think it isn't as obvious as I thought it'd be." Yes, professor. I have never heard half of the words you use and have never heard the other half used together before. So, sure... I've some questions.
I can listen to him like I would a classical pianist. The notes of his voice and the even the rhythm of his chalk tapping the board are very pleasant... naturally I couldn't play a note of it myself.
Being a teacher in primary school for children on the spectrum, Witten standing making almost a monologue on a subject I would never grasp to understand, reminds me 1:1 with some of the young students that I have. Demanding such respect for the in depth knowledge of a subject or even a field with a rocket ship explanation even my mind can understand and at the same time with such a distance to moving and gesticulating. My biggest respect
@@leif1075 from what I can tell from reading around Witten is considered one of the most brilliant minds in his field. I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking that he's smarter than me
@@holliswilliams8426 I didn't say it had. What I said was that the way he stand and presents it with both body language as well as the very in depth knowledge of the subject at hand has.
I have very little mathematical literary, but his explanations are so intuitive and concise. I actually feel some aspects of understanding the concepts within the equations. It's beautiful. It's as if mathematics is expressed in so many different 'languages' that all elucidate the same thing. Thank you for broadcasting these beautiful, lyrical lectures. It's like listening to amazing Jazz.
I knew within the first minute, when a student began asking a question I didn't understand and Professor Witten began forming a diagram with written stuff alongside it as the guy was still working out his question, that I was in the right place to be eloquently confused and existentially out of my depth.
Can anyone imagine how much information he retains in his brain at any point of time that he can simply write them on the board as if he is writing a story?
He's bringing students on a journey through the theory, and the assumption is made that they are capable of the navigating themselves thru the math behind the theory. High level stuff!
A good teacher probes his students by asking what their questions are... Witten would be a tough teacher... strict, disciplined but honest... only for the most dedicated students...
Bro I don't know anything about physics nor math yet I am sitting here watching. There is something magnetic and magical about watching one of the greatest talking about something so advanced
This is hypnotic to listen to. I have 2 PhDs and used to think I was quite smart. Now I know that I am a literally several points behind this guy on the human evolutionary scale 😂.
My gosh. After a whole year of taking Real Analysis and Algebra, I now actually know what he's talking about. Or at least I understand the definitions of the words. Takes a lot of work to be able to speak math!
Am i getting this right? He is talking about Space time and time dilation and the maths behind it like its 5th grade maths to him? My head is fried. I wish i was smart enough to make this guy's coffee.
I recognized Witten because of TOE with Curt Jaimungal. Whether I personally understand it, or not, I'm terribly grateful it's here to be had for free, for those settings the world who are capable of understanding it, wherever they are in the world.
Good luck to anyone being taught by Witten. This lecture reminds me why I gave up wanting to be a theoretical physicist, and made the smart move into engineering science, which was a much better fit to my abilities.
Tbh, he doesn't seem like somebody who should be teaching. A good teacher needs to understand that his students aren't operating at his level of understanding. It's clear immediately upon watching the initial stages of the lecture; dead silence when asking students if they had questions, when asked questions he's dumbfounded and shocked that a concept isn't clear or as simple as he assumed it would be for the class. Crazy smart dude in his field. Bad teacher
So in other words, the universe is expanding on a dark matter lattice, and we are travelling in one direction at 200k a sec with atoms blinking out of the distance on the lattice as a gas state and with atoms, and you and I are suspended in space with everything in a gas state with light reacting to us to see the gas, and everything 1 mm out of reach is gas, and the atoms we touch react as a solid with string theory with force back on us, giving the illusion of life, and all atoms blinking out of the distance of 200k a sec behind us in the movement of our life riding on a dark matter multi-g-hexagon lattice = like a movie. Its how Joseph Charles Colin, The new Face of Art, see's our Lives .
I feel blessed to have easy access to this incredible lecture and not have to understand a single thing he said. Being normal is truly a wonderful thing.
I used to teach. The opening where he waited for a full 30 seconds for the students to ask questions, believe me is a long time to wait. Good patience on Witten.
Everyone is going on and on about how they don't understand all this stuff and how amazing it is that these people do. Remember, they didn't get here overnight. They worked hard to understand the fundamentals and learned them incrementally. Is it hard? yes, of course, but anything worth doing is hard.
I prefer to call Professor Witten a mathematical physicist. There's no question he has fantastic ability at mathematics and his ability to manipulate equations into a controversial theory. It has to be said many theorists are moving away from string theory, it has several deep problems.
For the people criticising his responses, it can be really difficult to teach elementary classes when you are engaged in very advanced research where many things are taken for granted.
@@bcs1793 Anything taught on a PhD program is generally considered to be fairly elementary. I am telling you this material is elementary if you do research on gravitation.
if there are no questions it means that: 1) every one of them clearly understood, 2) everything discussed in the class was clear and obvious in the first time 3) the students are as clever as the prof and 4) they have no idea about this all. I would say: 4)
In mathematics, the signature (v, p, r) of a metric tensor g (or equivalently, a real quadratic form thought of as a real symmetric bilinear form on a finite-dimensional vector space) is the number (counted with multiplicity) of positive, negative and zero eigenvalues of the real symmetric matrix gab of the metric tensor with respect to a basis. In relativistic physics, the v represents the time or virtual dimension, and the p for the space and physical dimension. Alternatively, it can be defined as the dimensions of a maximal positive and null subspace. By Sylvester's law of inertia these numbers do not depend on the choice of basis and thus can be used to classify the metric. The signature is often denoted by a pair of integers (v, p) implying r= 0, or as an explicit list of signs of eigenvalues such as (+, −, −, −) or (−, +, +, +) for the signatures (1, 3, 0) and (3, 1, 0), respectively.[1] The signature is said to be indefinite or mixed if both v and p are nonzero, and degenerate if r is nonzero. A Riemannian metric is a metric with a positive definite signature (v, 0). A Lorentzian metric is a metric with signature (p, 1), or (1, p). There is another notion of signature of a nondegenerate metric tensor given by a single number s defined as (v − p), where v and p are as above, which is equivalent to the above definition when the dimension n = v + p is given or implicit. For example, s = 1 − 3 = −2 for (+, −, −, −) and its mirroring s' = −s = +2 for (−, +, +, +). The earth is non rotating center of the universe with a dome that contains the stars 'wondering stars and this is all mans way to explain away the God of creation m and m experiment proved this bring back the ether and solve your Newton emptiness/
I respect the man, but his path in life is a waste of talent IMHO. M-Theory yielded 0 useful predictions to improve our lives so far. Meanwhile, the people who invented the transformer over at Google may not have Witten's IQ, but they have paved the way for the future creation of machines with Ed Witten's intellect, machines that will help us figure out not only physics but change everything about how our society works.
