Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox - Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #370

There is a famous story about Einstein that he used to, you know, go, um, think, think, think, and then go for a walk, and, like, he would whistle sometimes. So, I remember the first time I heard this story. I thought, "Hmm, how interesting. It's what a coincidence that he- this came up to him when he was whistling."

Mm-hmm.

But in fact, it's not. This, it is how it works, in some sense. That y- y- you have to prepare for it, but then the mom- it happens when you stop thinking, actually. So the, the moment of discovery is the moment when thinking stops, and he, in a wa- you kind of, you kind of almost become that truth that you're seeking.

The following is a conversation with Edward Frenkel, one of the greatest living mathematicians, doing research on the interface of mathematics and quantum physics, with an emphasis on the Langlands program, which he describes as a grand unified theory of mathematics. He also is the author of Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Edward Frenkel. You open your book, Love and Math, with the question, "How does one become a mathematician? There are many ways that this can happen. Let me tell you how it happened to me." So, how did it happen to you?

So, first of all, I grew up in the Soviet Union. In a small town near Moscow called Kolomna. Um, and, uh, I was a smart kid, you know, in school, but mathematics was probably my least favorite subject. Not because I couldn't do it. I was, you know, a straight A student and I could do, um, all the problems easily, but I thought it was incredibly boring, and, um, since the only math I knew was what was presented at school, I thought that was it. And I was like, "What kind of boring subject is this?" So, what I really liked was physics. And especially quantum physics. So, I- I was buying, um, I was, I would go to a bookstore and buy popular books about elementary particles and atoms and things like that, and read them, you know, devour them. And so, I th- I, my dream was to become a theoretical physicist and to delve into this finer structure of the universe, you know? So then, something happened when I was 15 years old. Uh, it turns out that a f- a friend of my parents was a mathematician who was a professor at the local college. It was a small college preparing educators, teachers. It's a provincial town. Imagine, it's like, uh, 117 kilometers from Moscow, which would be something like 70 miles, I guess.

Mm-hmm.

(laughs) You do the math. (laughs)

I like how you remember the number exactly.

Yeah. Isn't it funny how we remember numbers?