From all accounts, for all of his AMAZING genius, he's widely considered a GREAT person too. One of the smartest humans to ever live.

I understood almost nothing but still got at least some vague sense of what the problems are in theoretical physics. It is such a wonderful thing to have these sorts of conversations available for the general public.

most soothing voice in physics

I love that I see him here first instead of some famous podcast! Seems more authentic for some reason?

I met Dr Witten in 2014 when he received Kyoto Prize. Fenomenal person.

Thank you for this conversation. Anytime Witten speaks I feel blessed to hear him. One of a kind.

A fitting line at the end there, as Dirac once said "God is a mathematician of a very high order and he used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe."

Hats off to the interviewer 😮😮😮

Thanks for the sub titles, this makes a difference in clarifying the speech.

Witten is an absolute legend. Great upload.

I always enjoy hearing Prof. Witten talk about Maths and Physics: the present conversation, BTW was (by far) the best I ever watched on the Internet, thanks to Director Dabholkar who asked high quality questions. And I'm always happy to see so many people interested in Physics (or in Science, in general...).

Thanks for this interview with the greatest mind on the planet. Great to hear Mr Witten.

That was great to hear how the different papers had influenced his thinking on the subject. This interview really encapsulates a particular view of the history of these things.

Very useful discussion on important aspects of the theoretical physics of the last half century from a 'giant' of the field. Moderator deserves praise.

Thank you for sharing. From Argentina...! Thanks a lot.!!

Nice. This will be a ~1hr well spent. Thank you, Dr. Witten!

This video made my day.

Oh Edward Witten! What are your thoughts on spacetime being doomed as fundamental? What are your insights about consciousness? What are your wildest speculations of reality no one knows about?

I don't think people grasp how smart Witten is. This dude is one of the smartest people EVER. The ONLY PHYSICIST to ever win a Fields Medal. And he's STILL sharp as a whistle all these years later. He's like some freakish combination of Einstein, Archimedes, Maxwell, Dirac and Poincare. His IQ would break the IQ test.

Professor Atish, that's a beautiful T shirt 👕🧠🔥🔥

Much awaited inspiration. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart.❤👍

I remember 15 years ago, I made a silly “discovery” that the values of n so that S^n has trivial tangent bundles are exactly the same as the dimensions of the universe (1 time, 3 spatial, 7 curled) predicted by string theory. I sent an email to Dr Witten. To my surprise, he replied to me and showed me his opinion!

Being a leading figure in those early years of string theory must have been one of the most exhilarating experiences a human mind can have. 100x better than fame, fortune etc

You can tell witten is very much enjoying the interview, I dont know the other person, but seems like they share a very strong bond. I was laughing with them even though i mostly did not understand what they were taking about.😂

I love hearing Witten speak. I hope we can unlock a new part of the mystery… the connection between gravity and QFTs so compellingly considered by Maldacena in his 1997 work. What will we discover next?

Excellent conversation and inspirational to listen to Professor Witten.

May god bless Mr. Witten with many more years full of health, prosperity and scientific achievements.

I would love a talk between Witten and Jim Simons on Mathermathics

I like Edward and his calmness. His motivation towards discovering truth is admirable and there is no doubt that he and others are making significant steps along the road to discovery. I would caution anyone's expectation that this will ultimately lead to any exposure of the universes greatest secrets. Hubris is the problem. The greater can understand the smaller but the smaller can never fully understand the greater.

IMO Witten owes the public more screen time

As a former student of string theory and supersymmetry, this is wonderful. I understand the criticism from the likes of Woit, Penrose and Weinstein, but the explanation that they (Witten) are building a tool is a useful analogy. I don't think people outside of physics can really understand just how much harder these things are than other realms of inquiry. Mathematics for instance, I love math, I've done some, it is comparitive far easier because it can be done in isolation without the need to be interwoven into some vastly complicated tapestry of ideas. Physics is like a symphony, there is so much more to do at once. Anyway, I am grateful for Witten's work, I just wish he would acknowledge the answer to the question at the end rests with the Creator. It is God's design for us to delight in His creation, the riddles left for us in physics are to my mind the most interesting of all.

A probability experiment that can give a value that string theory tells can prove and improve our understanding of nature at microscopic level and connect to the macroscopic level.

When renowned famous physicists consider you as the genius and main man, you know you’ve got it going on! Einstein of our time!

Witten's 4D knot theory of dynamic space time in physics is self interact graviton g*m^2=137.036*e+=(k*e^2/e-)*g*m^2 which's by graviton g*m^2 oscillating between quantum black hole at Planck scale l=g*m/c^2=(h*g/2pi*c^3)^0.5 which deduce ch=2pi*g*m^2=8pi*g*(m*c^2/2)^2/c^4 : solution of GR field equation, proton scale pl=g(p)*(4pi*pm/3)/c^2, Atom scale A^2=g(p)*pi*me/128.4980143*c^2 generate strong force g(p)=g*m^2/pm^2=g*(pl/4.1888*l)^2=1.13*10^28, EM force between proton[pm=1.672621868*10^-27 kg], electron[me=9.10938*10^-31 kg] in Atom[A=5.29177282*10^-11 meter] by k*e^2=g(p)*pm^2/137.036=ch/(2pi*137.036)[e+]=me*(c/137.036)^2*A[e-]=4pi*g(p)*pm*me*137.036/128.51991 which can reproduce Dirac's quantum field deduce 0.001161409725=1/(2pi*137.036) : anomalous electron magnetic moment of (g-2)/2 factor from potential energy of positron e+=ch/(2pi*137.036)=k*e^2 which can turn into quantum gravity 2pi*k*e^2*137.036=ch=(2*A1*137.036*pm*c^2)*(4pi*A*137.036)=En*L produce photon r=En=ch/L=chR=me*(c/137.036)^2/2=13.6*e[1.602*10^-19], deduce weak force unite g(p) with k*e^2 by pm/me=1836.1527=4pi*137.036^2/128.51991=1/(4*A1*137.036^3)=(pi/(128.4980143*A*137.036))^0.5, deduce (me/pm)^2/137.036=2pi*0.001161409725*(me/pm)^2=128.4980143*A/3.1415926=2.16*10^-9=0.00116592026 - 0.00116591810 = (0.001165920+((61-41)+(57-25))*10^-9/2) - (0.00116584719+6845*10^-7+154*10^-8+92*10^-9) : discrepancy of muon magnetic moment of (g-2)/2 factor between experiment data, theoretical prediction from Fermilab at 8/10/23, 85.73% ratio between muon[105 mev=(3*137.036/2)*0.511], electron[0.511 mev=me*c^2=g*m^2*137.036/A] decay from strong force by 14.27=A/(3*137.036*(A-A1))=128.51991/(3*137.036*(128.51991-128.49801421207))=128.49801421207/3^2 where A1=a8(128.4980143/128.51991)=5.2908712*10^-11 meter : vibration of 3 two dimensional Schwinger-Dyson quantum field ch=2pi*l*m*c^2=2pi*pl*pm*c^2/4.1888=2pi*A*me*c^2/137.036 by ADS/CFT duality from 3 quantum black hole l, pl, A^2 which can compose q unique extra 6 dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold fits our universe cause Einstein's Brownian motion we can observe, deduce 2^(1/6)*ch=125 Gev : Higgs boson from super symmetry 1/137.036=e^2/(2*ch*p)=k*e^2/g*m^2 unite QM with GR, ch=111.44 Gev[1.602*10^-19/c^2], p=8.85418782*10^-12, u=4pi*10^-7 : permittivity, permeability of free space ch=2pi*g*(137.036*up*e-/l)*(137.036*up*e+/l) which's quantize Maxwell equation for EM wave.

Every word has a meaning. Every word may not mean the same to the other people in conversation.

At the end. Witten say it's as if the universe was created by a mathematician. How interesting. A virtuoso in music might say it was might have been by a musician. The list goes on. But in any case, Witten is truly a virtuoso in his field.

Very enjoyable. Didn't understand most of it.

David Olive was my supervisor for a while, while Salam asked me to learn Chern Simons. They both had a very high opinion of Witten. I didn’t realise Witten had travelled to London to explicity speak to Olive around 2 decades before he rehighlghted Olive's work on duality and that he, Witten, had been skeptical previously. That was about 5 years after I had left physics, so I wasn't even aware when Witten started marketing duality. One other comment intrigues me. Witten says that Sidney Coleman showed him several serious papers that were almost entirely unknown. This says something about how some important work is left unadressed, unrecognised and wasted.

He does have a very distinctive speech pattern. I wonder how much this is determined by how his mind works or if it's just a superficial habit. Fascinating man though, also comes over as absolute gent as well.

He’s a brilliant theorist and mathematician, of the highest order on things technical in string theory. Probably the preeminent physicist of our time. His unification of seemingly competing branches of string theory into M theory theory or Super String theory is his crowning achievement. And it stunned the physics community. And still does. However, on the sobering side, string theory has effectively run “out of gas” in explaining the world and unifying QFT and relativity. String theory some say was a grand but ultimately fruitless detour to the final knowledge of grand unification. Most here know the critiques of string theory by Penrose, Weinstein and others. Funny though that we live in a world where QFT and relativity co-exist; so there must be an ultimate solution to how they live and function together. As Einstein said, there must be “something deeply hidden.”

How many of Witten's works give predictions for measurable quantities, and how many of his predictions have been confirmed experimentally?

Everything in the world is connected. This would mean even the landscape on the planet has logical and scientific reasons.

What do the Twistors of Roger Penrose and the Hopf Fibrations of Eric Weinstein and the "Belt Trick" of Paul Dirac have in common? In Spinors it takes two complete turns to get down the "rabbit hole" (Alpha Funnel 3D--->4D) to produce one twist cycle (1 Quantum unit). Can both Matter and Energy be described as "Quanta" of Spatial Curvature? (A string is revealed to be a twisted cord when viewed up close.) Mass= 1/Length, with each twist cycle of the 4D Hypertube proportional to Planck’s Constant. In this model Alpha equals the compactification ratio within the twistor cone, which is approximately 1/137. 1= Hypertubule diameter at 4D interface 137= Cone’s larger end diameter at 3D interface where the photons are absorbed or emitted. The 4D twisted Hypertubule gets longer or shorter as twisting or untwisting occurs. (720 degrees per twist cycle.) If quarks have not been isolated and gluons have not been isolated, how do we know they are not parts of the same thing? The tentacles of an octopus and the body of an octopus are parts of the same creature. Is there an alternative interpretation of "Asymptotic Freedom"? What if Quarks are actually made up of twisted tubes which become physically entangled with two other twisted tubes to produce a proton? Instead of the Strong Force being mediated by the constant exchange of gluons, it would be mediated by the physical entanglement of these twisted tubes. When only two twisted tubules are entangled, a meson is produced which is unstable and rapidly unwinds (decays) into something else. A proton would be analogous to three twisted rubber bands becoming entangled and the "Quarks" would be the places where the tubes are tangled together. The behavior would be the same as rubber balls (representing the Quarks) connected with twisted rubber bands being separated from each other or placed closer together producing the exact same phenomenon as "Asymptotic Freedom" in protons and neutrons. The force would become greater as the balls are separated, but the force would become less if the balls were placed closer together. Therefore, the gluon is a synthetic particle (zero mass, zero charge) invented to explain the Strong Force. The "Color Force" is a consequence of the XYZ orientation entanglement of the twisted tubules. The two twisted tubule entanglement of Mesons is not stable and unwinds. It takes the entanglement of three twisted tubules to produce the stable proton.

Dimensions of space can be individually studied and in relation to other dimensions. Can we relate the higher dimensions like study any two dimensions like x and y or x and z or y and z?.

Smartest person in my generation, perhaps? Brilliant…. Absolutely brilliant. Still I’m sticking with my own dumb idea that there is a God and he cares for me. You do you.

Most enjoyable, thank you++

Can someone tell me how long a string is and what the string is made of ? Thank you .

Thank you for this video

Nice interview !!!

The GOAT

Descartes is watching

A theoretical physicist wins a field medal.... There is nothing more than this to say about his legacy... To the people who are arguing down there is a quote by Hilbert “Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicist ”

I also couldn’t stop chuckling when I realized the BPS spectrum could be physical . Now if I only knew what it all means .

Great conversation and location

Can mathematic analysis be improved to mathematical design by evolving the terms used and this helped to touch higher dimensions?

Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.

If there is anything problematic about String Theoretical Vibration analysis of apparent circumstances, it is in the congruence of functional interpretation that goes back and forth from students to teacher in the usual cycles of teaching-learning coincidental correspondences, cause-effect.., which is why learning by doing apprenticeship is slightly different in practice to absorbing conventional studies and word recognition. Because Semantic symbology analysis is "across all observation" that begins with childhood memory transfers, that are much more visceral than industrial scale educational programs are suited to. To catch up with the leaders of knowledge requires an overhaul of teaching language and experience in "artistic" symbology, which is to say, restore some sort of feedback mechanism equivalent to the apprenticeship style of eyes and ears study of actions that make the words, sights and sounds in reciprocation-recirculation recognition of amplitude-frequency temporal superposition wave-packaging.

I understood only the parts that were in English such as “the, and, so, we, boundary” etc.

Now it may be asked why these hidden variables should have so long remained undetected. ~Bohm Well, obviously the extra dimensions have to be different somehow because otherwise we would notice them. ~Green If you ask a physicist what is his idea of yellow light, he will tell you that it is transversal electromagnetic waves of wavelength in the neighborhood of 590 millimicrons. If you ask him: But where does yellow comes in? he will say: In my picture not at all, but these kinds of vibrations, when they hit the retina of a healthy eye, give the person whose eye it is the sensation of yellow. ~Schrödinger What we see depends on light entering the eye. Furthermore we do not even perceive what enters the eye. The things transmitted are waves or - as Newton thought - minute particles, and the things seen are colors. Locke met this difficulty by a theory of primary and secondary qualities. Namely, there are some attributes of the matter which we do perceive. These are the primary qualities, and there are other things which we perceive, such as colors, which are not attributes of matter, but are perceived by us as if they were such attributes. These are the secondary qualities of matter. Why should we perceive secondary qualities? It seems an unfortunate arrangement that we should perceive a lot of things that are not there. Yet this is what the theory of secondary qualities in fact comes to. ~Whitehead

I love the shirt Atish is wearing 😅

KNOWING The phase waves of light All OF, will help string theory advance but also charges of the AFOREMENTIONED need to be known as well as CMB interactions on the AFOREMENTIONED are different depending on an areas temp , complex things dimensions ???

Finally he is back on a new interview on yt… He seems very comfortable & having a good time. Thanks for the upload

Insane that Witten hasn’t been on Lex F yet.

Are there practical applications/implications of his works? Any examples are welcome

Are dimensions infinitely long? Is a circle or ellipse also a dimension?

Really you should put ad on this !????

Very distinguished physicist? Understatement of all space-time.

He is getting the recognition he deserves. It's time people start knowing who this guy is as he is in the same league as Einstein, Newton and Dirac.

Not every KZfaq video needs to take place in front of bookshelves.

One has to do real work, or do math. Physics should be real, described in math. I don't know what Sir Witten does?

Probably the only person I would have been starstrucked of. Thank you both for this Great interview. Greetings from Norway.

I wish Ed would do more interviews, this is such a treat.

The joke at 14:50 is so sweet. It shows me that great physicists are funny people.

Edward witten is just amazing beautiful mind

Good man

Thus the colors with their various qualities and intensities fulfill the axioms of vector geometry if addition is interpreted as mixing; consequently, projective geometry applies to the color qualities. ~Weyl The principle of duality in projective geometry states that we can interchange point and line in a theorem about figures lying in one plane and obtain a meaningful statement. Moreover, the new or dual statement will itself be a theorem - that is, it can be proven. On the basis of what has been presented here we cannot see why this must always be the case for the dual statement. However, it is possible to show by one proof that every rephrasing of a theorem of projective geometry in accordance with the principle of duality must be a theorem. ~Kline

But Newton's theory also beautifully explains things although it is not essentially accurate.

Wonderful survey! Thank you both. But imo the biggest elephant in the room that all Physicists refuse to address is Reductionism. Not the castrated modern definition of "big things are made of smaller things," but the old Greek one (that of Plato's cave): How much of ontological reality can we understand via its categories (aka features, or attributes), that can be represented in named ink squiggles? What of the parts that cannot be so categorized? Because if there are no categories, there's no math, and without math, there's also no Physics. And quite clearly, Quantum Physics shows that in some regions of the universe (below the Planck length, e.g.) categories do not exist. Or rather, they both exist and don't exist, or maybe even neither... i.e., the elephant question is, how can we understand the parts of the universe where categories are absent? E.g.: The proton can be shown to be both bigger and smaller than its components, depending on how we measure it. Or are the categories "smaller than" and "bigger than" absent in these regions? How then to handle them? That is one manifestation of the problem, but there are of course many others. Iow, Physics must address Greek Reductionism honestly, before Physics can truly advance. To put it simply, Dubois Reymond's book may have been right, not David Hilbert's cri de coeur in that 1900 Math Congress in Paris.

He talks about a black hole being a quantum sphere which is something they arrived at for information preservation reasons? but could you ask him if the propagation speed of gravity means that the mass/gravity also has to be a quantum sphere or the propagation couldn't escape? and if so does that tell us a lot about how quantum gravity is or does it hide in nasty infinities in the math.

👍🤟 Continue looking...

Can dimensions be skewed?

yall at 30:00 til the end of the video i didnt hear anything but random english words that sounded familiar. im not even kidding i didnt understand or follow a single topic that was spoken about and im not even high.

This was entertaining, I did not understand the vast majority of it but it gave me the strong feeling that there is a great deal I can still learn (after I learn a bunch of prerequisites for it first), I am young and while I'm not the smartest it brings me joy that people are studying plausible mathematical structures that may underlie how the universe works and how to explain it precisely and consistently. Even if string theory does not turn out to be the most fruitful approach (which it very well may) I would be surprised if some of the related mathematical dualities that may have roots in more physically grounded correspondences do not turn out to be useful. Thank you for the video.

How come Ed never talks to Brian green on youtube ?

This is an anomalistic covering of ‘compact’ in the classifications of Ed Wittens

The duality may be like perception of few blind men who thought the ear of an elephant as a fan, the stomach as wall the tail as a rope, etc and etc.

This is awesome.

Calculus, probability and statistics and big data will change the way physical formulas will be derived in microscopic level and macroscopic level.

Any thing that happens in real life happens twice. Once it is visualised and then becomes reality.

I watched most of this and I don't really have a clue what hes saying.

I feel incredibly honoured that I was offered the wonderful opportunity of being part of the effort to give the final form to this historic video. (Just to introduce myself, I am a string theory postdoc at ICTP and I frequently collaborate with Professor Dabholkar.)

17:18 these guys really crack me up !

the goat

This is nerd shit to surpass the nerds themselves, nerd² Amazing though. Respect

What more does he have to do to be called a mathematician too?!😢❤

“String Theory has been very successful “ has it??

17:18 -- HAHAHAHAH good one! 😂😂😂

We are all allowed to have dreams, aren't we? Even a very far and difficult one. Hopefully, with dualities/correspondence (and the hard work of great minds such as Prof Witten), we will not only be able to unify all physics but also all math in a single unified "theory"

Unintentional asmr

Short sleeves...nice