YouSaid · the spoken record

Edward Frenkel

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257
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2023-04-10
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2023-04-10
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  1. “Ask me in a couple of years, you know, I will report. But I think it's, but. To my mathematical mind. It sounds like a very interesting idea, to be honest, because to me, the idea of holding sounds like an impasse. Because no matter in all my experience, and if you look in history, every time somebody is holding, you know how they said in the matrix, whatever has a beginning has an end. It's like, you cannot go around it. If you have a beginning, you will have an end. So then might as well just enjoy it and not worry too much about extending it longer. How I see it now, but maybe tomorrow will be something else, you know.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Is there another way to approach life where you just know how Buddha is like? Just let it go. Enjoy and let it go. Enjoy and let it go. Is it possible?”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I find it to be very moving. I find it very moving. And I understand because he actually didn't have a chance to spend much time, you know, I think he was 16 or 17 when he was a teenager. His dad died. I was lucky because my father died. I was much older. I've had so many moments with him. But that's not my thing. Like, I think it is a feature. It's not a bug. And it sounds crazy. Like, I would love, I would give anything to have him or here right now. Right now, everything I have, I give it away. Right now, Do I See him for one hour. I promise you, I will. But I also know that I'll still lose him. Or I will die or whatever. So that thing. So why is it so worse to just hold on to holding on to it? Why? Why are we holding on to this? And I am the first sucker. I'm not the first one to hold on. But I'm questioning it now.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yes, but in a sense, you can say that you cannot have one without the other. You could not have that deep connection with my father, like really on so, so many levels. If there weren't a moment, that's how I see it. And I'm not trying to say that's how everybody should see. For instance, I respect Ray Corswell. I respect and I feel, and I almost like, I feel good bumps right now. I feel that desire to reconnect. Even if it is in the form of a computer program, let's be honest about it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “It's like the glue, you know. It's like for me, it's like And it's not because people say love is like for a human being, like a romantic love. Which is a huge component of it, obviously, because so, so beautiful to be able to express it in this way. But it could be love for what you do, for your passion for something, you know, or love for your friends, for instance, or love, it doesn't have to be. And so in some sense, that's what it's all about ultimately because living without love, it's kind of bland, boring. And so...”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Yes, and that's why I am so people around me, they will say that it's a total doom and gloom and the world is ending. And I'm like, first of all, that's how you see it. That's not the only point of view. But also, even if it is, that's your challenge. What are you going to do about it? Stop complaining about other people. Do something yourself. How can you make it a better world?”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And I kind of makes me feel different about all kinds of difficulties that arise because it's almost like I want to enjoy it because that's what being human is. It's being terrified. It's being frustrated. It's being self-loathing sometimes. It's not knowing, but also being joyful and just like let's just enjoy it kind of all of it. That's why you came here for in some sense, you know? It's like not trying to run away from things, but kind of trying to just live through them and appreciate. So the biggest thing is gratitude in some sense. It's just gratitude. So thank you for letting me play.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “It burns like immediately, like boom, gone, it's there. Live through it, and I was, I kept saying to myself, I just live through it, live through it. That's how you, and that's how you know also learn what is love, for example, what is it really? What is love? What is life also? Because I was completely... Had no idea And then you kind of learn that okay, so maybe it's not quite. Is more to it. There is more to this experience than what can be put in a concept or in a sentence, in a maybe poetry or music can do some justice to it. But if so, then my own life has that component, has that dimension, which is beyond anything I can say about it, you know? And even though I love this being playing this role, I love it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “A certain conceptual view of life and death today, which is informed by my experiences, in particular going through my father's death. And that is something which cannot be. Conceptualized, like that experience. He cannot give it to somebody. One thing I will say is that I felt that what it was, it was actually love totally exposed. Nak And you try to throw, it is so acute. So being facing that love is incredibly painful because it's so intense. When a person is alive We have conversation, we have words, we have some actions, we have some stuff is going on, and it puts a filter. So we rarely actually feel love and it's totally completely pure, unadulterated state. But when person dies, it's there. And it's staring at you. And no matter what you do, you cannot turn away. Almost I felt like I want to throw a blanket over it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Both times they were in Boston. It could be anywhere in the US. Both times was in Boston, walking distance from my parents' place. So he could be there in my mom as well. That was such a gift that he was beaming, you know, like seeing me on the stage. So”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And then he ended up in this little provincial town. And he thought he would escape from it as soon as possible. And then he met my mother and he fell in love. And so I am sort of the product of that, you know. But then, what I learned is that Because he was not able to overcome that specific experience, it felt to me to do it. And if I didn't, my son or my daughter would have. I think that that was one of the things I learned. It was not by chance that about the same age. Slightly different reason. I was subjected to the same kind of unfairness and cruelty. And in some ways, I feel like I did it for him also. I always, because he was also always so proud of me. I was so happy. And I had this tremendous gift twice. I was invited by American Mathematical Society to give these big lectures twice. It was in 2012 and in 2018.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah. And in some sense, I always did. I saw that, that it's always been. It was really we were one in some sense, you know, like we were, but there was this experience of. Together, and that I missed tremendously. But he gave me so much and let me tell you one aspect of it, for instance He was a kid. His father was sent to Gulag on bogus pretenses, right? So when he was 16, he applied to university. He wanted to become a theoretical physicist. By the way, my love for theoretical physics was to a large extent because of that. And he was not accepted, even though he was brilliant because he was the son of the enemy of the people. And It kind of broke him, this experience that he didn't care when he was, you know, he went to a technical school and he didn't really care. That's my take on it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So, and then suddenly he's not there. So stuff, but it kind of changed my perspective. Miss him tremendously Mister tremendously, but in a way, I learned that he never left me in some, I mean, it sounds so words are so, you know, like you cannot express in words this, what I'm trying to say.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “That's another big one, yeah, because I was very close to him. And it was tough. It was tough. And I Was sort of not ready for it because up until that point I lived pretending that death does not exist. My grandparents died, I was already in the US. Very convenient, and I couldn't go back, so I grieved, but it kind of was a bit abstract for me. I didn't see their dead bodies, you know, I didn't. Bury them and so on. So I waited till the first death in my life was my father, like of really close loved ones. And I was absolutely devastated. He was such an amazing creature, such an amazing human being. He was the kindest, the smartest, the most funny, just really funny and just really fun to be with, you know? This is what I miss, obviously. I mean, I would just love to hang out with him.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Focused me like a laser without me even thinking about it. It just happened. I didn't care about anything but doing mathematics and it paid off. It changed my life. So was it good or bad? Paradox.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And I saw all the horrors and so on, but I also was able to see. My examiners were victims. Their own situation, that they fell for this bogus theories, or maybe it was more of an issue of career advancement or something. Other they must have suffered as well because they must have had some kind of consciousness about it, that acting this way towards sort of Basically, kids, you know. So it's not, it wasn't pretty from their point of view. So I could forgive them And I could also appreciate what a boost of energy it gave me. If I was accepted and I was just where was a first year student, I lived, I would live in a dorm because I was in, you know, I'd be probably partying and drinking. And who knows what? Maybe I wouldn't even become a mathematician. But this”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Reason I'm talking about this is just to share this experience because I think that the only thing we can do in this in some sense is to share with each other because then we can find Instance, if somebody Shared with me, it would naturally lead me maybe to get closer to that, to kind of understanding. It's really just personal stories. There is a component where professionals could be involved, professional therapists and so on. In my case, it somehow happened miraculously. Well, I did have support, but not from professional therapists, but from dear friends. So I did have, you do need some, I had somebody at the time who basically held my hand through this experience. Yes, it was invaluable and it could not be done otherwise. So, I think it's very common. And here's the thing. I would not do it in any other way. When I reconnected.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Kind of a universal phenomenon. I think that, interesting enough, even though now I see a lot of discussion of it, now that my eyes are open, but somehow before, I didn't see it, so that which also shows you how our confirmation bias, kind of like how we screen ourselves, how we turn the blind eye to things which do not confirm our views or for which we are not yet ready. And by the way, nobody should push to do it too soon. I'm glad I developed certain strength. I was confident I was strong to withstand this. And if I weren't, who knows how it could turn out? So it is a very subtle kind of alchemical process, which I don't think there is a recipe, there is a formula.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I was not ready for it. It is a defense mechanism. I could have come, you know, there were kids who commit suicide after this experience. I could have committed suicide because it's too much. And it is well known afterwards, of course, I became aware of all the literature about childhood trauma and so on. And I've been speaking publicly about it since then too. And so, you know, it is a well-known issue and well-known.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Interested in the dimensions of imagination and intuition, and so on. Because suddenly I realized that I was deprived of that possibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a child because that child was frozen in time. I was not connected to him. But suddenly he's with me. And he's like almost like open this doors and says, look at.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “About his experience in his own voice. It was incredible. People were crying and afterwards came up to me and started sharing stories and so on. It is a story, it's a universal story. It's archetypal story. It's the story of rejection. Being treated unfairly, we all know it. And I think it's so important to realize that. It's possible to revisit those moments. It's possible to reconnect to our little ones. It's possible to bring them back. We are better for it because this changed my life, this experience. Then suddenly it's like a floodgates. There were many other things that came. That's when I became”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Oh, he's here. And I had a little talk with him, and I said, Look, now I thank you. I'm so sorry that I neglected you for so long. I didn't know. Thank you Doing this, and it's almost like you know, I felt like the image came to mind, it's like a fallen soldier, like you leave a fallen soldier on the battlefield, a wounded soldier, and then you come back to take him with you. And I said, but look, look what we have done. Look at us now. It was not in vain. We are doing okay. It's kind of almost just like holding, holding, holding that. That sense of who I am, you know, and feeling it. So Next day, I went to the microphone and I let him speak for the first time”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So that, and the thing later, I realized there were moments when it could come out. And for instance, I developed this fear of public speaking. All kinds of little things that I now feel were connected. So anyway, I saw what happened now through the eyes of that child. I saw how difficult it was, how crushed he was. And it looks complete hopeless. And I felt like, what's the point of living now for me now that I know how cruel this world is, which I didn't realize before because I prefer to wear this pink, you know, the rose-colored glasses. But then something happened. It's so strange. Like you feel that inside of you there is this dead child, and it is incredibly sad. I mean, it's like. I can't even describe it, but suddenly he comes alive. And suddenly it's like,”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “They may still influence you, and a lot of that could be connected to some experiences in your childhood. So I was kind of ready for it from different angles, but I was so surprised because I was like, what is there to remember? I know, I know everything. So then my inner voice says, All right, then you have nothing to worry about. Go tomorrow. You will speak about this. And if you start crying, it's not a problem. I was like, no, I don't want to cry in front of people. I want to find out what it is. What happened? And I sat on my bed, closed my eyes, and it came. It's hard to describe, so this is what And the sheer energy of it and how much effort it took to suppress it actually for all these years, how much effort it took to build that pan seri, I would say, in Russian, you know, that hardcore, you know, around myself.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “And that kind of started the process. So finally, almost a year later, I'm in New York in this. This event and the night before I'm in my hotel room, and I was like, okay, what am I going to talk about tomorrow? And I take a piece of paper just to, you know, my usual preparation, you know, for things. And then suddenly I have this vision that I will walk up to the microphone tomorrow and I will just Start crying. And I was like, By that time, I already had an insight that it's possible to have that kind of splitting kind of dissociation. But things were happening quickly. There was someone in my life who explained to me this idea that some things are under the radar of awareness”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Was kind of a spoken word event. About science, but like personal experiences related to science. This was almost a year after my book came out. In my book, Of the first chapters is a chapter about this experience. But what I realize now is that I wrote it from the third person perspective. I knew the facts. I was not emotionally connected to that experience. However, since I wanted to write the book and to connect to my readers, I allowed the boy to write it. So, a lot of people were touched by it. And people would say, wow, that chapter, you know, it really got a lot of resonance. It was translated into other language even before the book was published. I was surprised by this because I didn't know yet. So the adult Edward was not yet in touch, but the book gave the outlet to the child.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Just instance because there was no way it looked like there was no way I could become a mathematician because if I don't if they don't accept me there it's over I didn't know that I could actually find this striving applied math program and then eventually somebody would take me under his weighing and so on and then could move to the United States. That was not in the realm of possibilities. So in other words, there was nothing to look forward to. It was clear that it's over. I cannot. I cannot do what I love And so when I finally, When I finally connected to that boy, oh my God, I was a totally different experience. All the pain and all the trauma came to the surface. And it was. Kind of a tsunami. I wasn't sure I would survive this. It was so hard. And what happened was I was invited to Give a talk about this”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And so But the point is, so and then I was so motivated by this because I wanted to. Show those guys, you know, that within five years, less than five years, I got a letter from the president of Harvard University. Inviting me as a visiting professor to Harvard. I was 21. I was barely 21 because I already did some research in the meantime. That's how motivated I was. But the interesting aspect of it is that for the longest time afterwards, I was telling myself a story that nothing really happened. Wasn't so bad. Okay, so I was failed, but I knew that I was going to. It was 30 years later that I finally Got to meet that boy, that 16 year old that I neglected this time. And I realized that he died, that it was a crushing blow.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Other kids were being questioned by other examiners, but they told me that we cannot question you. We are waiting for special examiners. So I was like, oh, something is food. And so these two guys came. And for four hours, basically, were asking me questions which were not in the program and so on. But I was a kid. I was 16 years old. I tried to answer as best I can, but it was a setup. It's been documented since then. There are even lists of problems that were given to undesirables in those days. In my year, no Jewish applicants, as far as I know. By this metric, Were accepted. So then I had to go to this. Was one school, technical school in Moscow, which was the Institute for Oil and Gas Exploration, which had applied mathematics program. And that's where me and many of the kids who were not accepted to Moscow University ended up.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Me, it was Russian. So, first of all, in the inner part, everybody has an internal passport. And there you have first name, patronymic name. Last name, date of birth. So these are four. And the fifth colon. Isality. Which comes from the nationality of the parents and so on. In my case, it was written Russian because my mom was Russian. But it didn't save me Because my dad's last name. And so anyway, this was the toughest experience that I had up until that point. And there was these two people who came into the room where I was the only undesirable.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “My nationality was. And so there was this can you imagine there were special people who would screen up applicants who would put aside the files of the undesirables. Would be special examiners who were actually professors at this university who would be designated as those who would take the exam from those undesirables. It's almost comical when you look back now. And also, like, questions why there was no reason other than just hatred of the other. That's how I see it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And it's like a huge building, this monolith of a building of Moscow University. So, because as I said, you know, a year earlier, Evgeny, which converted me into math, capitalizing on my love for quantum physics. And so I spent a whole year studying with him. And I was already kind of at the level of. In some subjects, a level of early graduate studies. So it seemed like it would be a breeze to get into Moscow University. But in fact, little did I know that Policy of anti-Semitism where students like me would be failed by special examiners, mostly during the oral exam, mathematics, but occasionally it would be written tests and stuff. Now, my father is Jewish by blood. It was not religious. Family was not religious. My mom is Russian But since my last name was my father's name, so it was very easy to.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “And then it doesn't break you, make you stronger. But in my case, Happened was that for some of it, it took me 30 years to really come to terms with it and to really understand what happened. Gave me this motivation. To strive to become a mathematician, which maybe I wouldn't have otherwise, it charged me, supercharged me. I'm talking about, for instance, my experience with exam at Moscow University.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Bringing family like I was surrounded by love by my parents on the one hand, but on the other side perhaps they were a little overprotective of me. So I was kind of like, you know, Much kind of like taken care of, so then when I On one hand, it develops on sensitivity, but was kind of not ready for the challenges. The real world. So then that struggle and then being lost and then being able to overcome and to learn. And then if you do, if you don't lose, you don't appreciate maybe. But sometimes when we lose something and then regain it, then we cherish it to appreciate and then become something important. Also, various difficulties, upsetting experiences or one could say traumatic experiences. Growing up in the Soviet Union, that was not a walk in the park. There were a lot of issues there that I had to go through.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Good question. Definitely, there is some influence of the Russian culture, Russian literature, perhaps, you know. Also, you know, like there are so many things, how do we develop certain sensibilities? Like, why do we care about this and not that? Why do I care, for instance, about, like you said, about this romantic ideals, so to speak, of mathematics? That's certainly not something that is automatic. Some people care about it, some people don't. And I'm not saying it is superior or inferior. It's just how my composition, my psychological composition is like that. An interesting question, what is the cause of it? So I think that. We cannot really know, but there are some aspects of it, of course, the experiences, life experiences are”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Your book is the reason why I chose math as my major. And I am proud, especially when it's women who tell me this. And they are cool. They are DJs at the same time. And they are social and they have friends and they go out and so on. You see, so then they carry the torch because then they will be more likely. To share this beauty with others, to attract more students and so on. So I think this dumb was broken. So now they'll have more influx. And once we have people who are more able to connect at the personal level, that's when we also become more self-aware as a community, I think. And that's when we might have a chance to improve in terms of our ethical rules and stuff like that.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Would join because then they would have students who would look at them and whom they will inspire. And then it would be instead of a vicious circle, it would be a virtuous circle. And I have to say, I think it's happening, not because of my efforts alone. Obviously, there are many other mathematicians who are around the same time started to put more effort. Because see, the old stereotype of mathematician, you're so enclosed, you're not interested in even exposing the beauty of your subject to other people. See, and then it becomes this vicious circle. But you know, this one day, you know, I not one day, all the time I meet the students who say,”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “But I think that's one of the reasons. And one of the Reasons why I wrote Love Precisely to break that cycle, it's the quiet guy in the corner that goes into math and not the flamboyant, you know, jock or like, you know, DJ. Wanted to show how beautiful the subject is to attract this new blood so that different psychological types and More women”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “From society because it's such a pure subject, it draws in very specific psychological types. And I can speak about myself. I did not realize it at the time, but later on I definitely saw, I mentioned some of it earlier, that for me, mathematics was a refuge from the cruelty of the life I experienced, from discrimination that I experienced when I applied to Moscow University at 16 and being failed at the exam and stuff like that, which I describe in my book as well. That was my way. It was like I don't trust this world. I don't want to deal with it. I want to hide in this platonic reality of pure forms. This is where I know how to operate. I love this and I couldn't be bothered in some sense. For a while, up to a point as I was getting older and more mature, I was becoming more and more interested in other things.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “I think he won the Nobel Prize eventually, which is about a million dollars. But, you know, sometimes I joke about this, that this is the hardest way to win a million dollars. So, you know But amongst mathematicians, I think the trouble is that we are so insulated.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Yeah, I mean. Right, it's, I think it's like everything else, the path is to more self-awareness. And it's like owning up your own stuff and not blaming other people, not projecting onto other people, but taking responsibility. And that's true for everything. The problem here, unique problem for mathematics, I would say physicists and chemists are better. They actually have better sort of ethical rules and so on, especially biologists. Because I think in part it's because there is much more money involved because they have to get grants and so on. So for them, the question of priority, who discovered what first is much more serious because there's really some serious money. Mathematics, who cares? You know, like for my proved. Andrew Wildes become a millionaire? No. As I knew, you won a prize, but those prizes Not”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Think we can definitely do better. And I think the first step is to kind of admit that we are not 100% seekers of truth, that we are human beings and all the Good and bad, and the ugly qualities. Can be present and to have some kind of dialogue in my subject, in mathematics. This has not happened yet. There have been some famous cases where people have been accused, which had been resolved or partially resolved or unresolved. And everybody knows that, but there isn't a systematic effort as far as I can tell, of really trying to create some rules, some ethics rules. This is fair game. This is not fair game. So that as a community, we strive to get better. I think that for most people, it's more like keeping your head in the sand and kind of pretending that it doesn't happen. Or it happens some isolated incidents. Well, my experience is not like that at all.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Not at the time, not at the time. So later on there were situations where I was exposed to those type of experiences. But at that time, I didn't think of that. I was still this starry-eyed kid, you know, who was just obsessed with mathematics, with this beauty and discovery, discovering those beautiful facts, beautiful results. So I didn't think about, I didn't even think that it could be possible that somebody could steal it or whatever. I just wanted to share it with my teacher as soon as possible, you know, and he understood quickly and he's like, good job, you know.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “And the answer was very nice. So nobody knew, as far as I could tell, nobody knew because my teacher told me that he explored all the literature. This was not known. Suddenly, I felt that I was in possession. Now it was a little thing. It was not cure for cancer. It was not Large language model, you know, but it was something undeniably real, meaningful, and it was mine kind of, you know, like I had it, nobody else, I had not published it. I didn't even tell, hadn't even told anybody. And it is a very strange feeling, you know, to have that.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Actually, you know, I lived in a town outside of Moscow, so I used to take, I would take a train to Moscow. So it's what we call in Russia Electricha, you know, like this electric train, which was super slow. It took more than two hours to cover that distance. And I think that the crucial insight came when I was in this. And I had to contain myself so I don't start screaming, you know, because there were other passengers in the car. I was sitting there and staring at this paper. You know what I remember what came to me? I have something now which nobody else in the world has. I have a proof of, first of all, I did not, it was not just a proof. Like in the case of Ferma, the statement is already made. That's why it's called conjecture. You make a statement, you don't have a proof yet. Then you try to prove it. In my case, I did not know what the answer would be. There was a type of question where the answer was unknown. So I had to find the answer and prove it.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “So I was very happy. But I do remember this moment when suddenly you see that. Just like in this case, it was literally I had to compile these diagrams with what mathematicians call cohomology groups and spectral sequences and manually calculate some numbers and trying to discern some system in it. And suddenly I saw that how they all were governed by this one force, so to speak, one pattern. And that was absolutely, wow. So it's like...”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “So he gave me this problem, and it was rather technical, so I will not try to describe it. But I do remember how much effort, that excitement, but also kind of a fear. What if I don't have what it takes? I lost sleep. So this was one consequence of this. For the first time in my life, I had trouble falling asleep. And this actually stayed for a couple years afterwards. So then it was kind of like a wake-up call that I should be to take care of myself, not worked. Experience, and I was lucky that I was able to find a solution number one within two months, maybe. And it was surprising and it was beautiful. The answer was in terms of something which seemed to be from a different world, from a different area of mathematics”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “This Is really interesting because all of us, all methods can relate to this because I remember very well my first problem, how I solved my first problem. Describe it in love and math in my book It was, I was, how old was I? I was 18 years old. I was a student in Moscow and I was just, I just lucked out that I was introduced to this great mathematician since I was not studying at Moscow University because of anti-Semitism and the Soviet Union. So I was in this technical school, but I was lucky that I had a mathematician who took me under his wing. And Dmitry Fox, who actually later came to the US and he's still a professor at UC Davis, actually. So far from me.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yes, so he worked, he has given interviews about it afterwards. So we know that he described his process, that number one, he did not want to tell anybody because he was afraid that people find out that he's working on it. Because he was such a top level mathematician, people would guess that he has some idea, that there is some idea. So, you know If you just know that somebody has an idea, this already gives you a great boost of confidence, right? So he didn't want people to have that information. So he didn't tell anybody that he was working on it. Number one Number two, you worked on it for seven years, if I remember correctly, by himself. And then he thought he had it and he was elated. Obviously, very happy. And he announced it at a conference, I think it was in Cambridge University or Oxford University in the UK in 1993, I believe.”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Here is a guy, it's the 16th century mathematician or 17th century mathematician who lives a note on the margin and motivates others to find the proof. Then how many hearts were broken that they believe that they found the proof and then later it was realized that the proof was incorrect and so on and brings us to modern day and one last attempt and reviles who is very serious and respected and esteemed mathematician announces the proof only to be faced with the same reality of his hopes dashed seemingly dashed and like there is a mistake it doesn't work and then to be able to recover a year later how much drama in this one story”

    2023-04-10 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #370 – Edward Frenkel: Reality is a Paradox – Mathematics, Physics, Truth & Love · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source