The Meta Torture of Mathematical Comfort

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Complex numbers satisfy the same properties as real numbers that we're used to. There is an inverse for every non-zero number that you can find like number five has an inverse one over five but one plus i also has an inverse for instance. You get what's called coternians discovered by an Irish mathematician Hamilton in the 19th century and then in in the eight-dimensional there is something similar called octonions. The structure exists in dimension one two four and eight which are all powers of two those square is four two to the third powers eight That's one of the bigger mysteries in mathematics why it is so yes a hint there's a hint of what's missing in our

Edward Frenkel is a mathematician at UC Berkeley working on the interface of mathematics and quantum physics. He is the author of Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:54) – Mathematics in the Soviet Union
(16:05) – Nature of reality
(27:23) – Scientific discoveries
(40:45) – Observing reality
(56:57) – Complex numbers
(1:05:42) – Imagination
(1:13:33) – Pythagoreanism
(1:21:28) – AI and love
(1:34:07) – Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems
(1:54:32) – Beauty in mathematics
(1:59:02) – Eric Weinstein
(2:20:57) – Langlands Program
(2:27:36) – Edward Witten
(2:30:41) – String theory
(2:36:10) – Theory of everything
(2:45:03) – Mathematics in academia
(2:50:30) – How to think
(2:56:16) – Fermat’s Last Theorem
(3:11:07) – Eric Weinstein and Harvard
(3:18:32) – Antisemitism
(3:38:45) – Mortality
(3:46:42) – Love