Eric Weinstein & Richard Borcherds: Fields Medalist & Eric Weinstein on the Future of Mathematics

SPONSORS: - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE - Buy 2 months of BlueChew Gold, get the 3rd FREE with promo code TOE, plus 10% off and free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit https://bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. - Were you or your child harmed by years on social media? Morgan & Morgan may be able to help. Take a short quiz to see if you qualify: https://morganmorganpa.sjv.io/c/7306573/4089046/23429?sharedid=broad-range-media-theories-of-everything Every episode days early, ad-free, plus my essays: https://curtjaimungal.com This episode is about mathematics in the age of AI. Richard Borcherds, a Fields Medalist and professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, and Eric Weinstein, who earned his PhD in mathematics at Harvard, join to take up three questions. What is mathematics about, what is the future for math students, and what is at stake? We discuss whether AI can build theories or only solve problems, why pure mathematics is worth funding, and what is left for human mathematicians. The conversation also covers the sporadic groups, whether math will go the way of chess, and who deserves credit if a stranger with an AI proves the Riemann hypothesis. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.com - Twitter: https://x.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.gg/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - Has AI Conquered Math? - 07:14 - Six-Sphere and Exotic Spheres - 12:49 - Secrecy, Credit, and Purity - 19:46 - Why Fund Pure Math? - 31:45 - Octonions and Exceptional Lie Groups - 42:00 - Calculation Without Understanding? - 48:24 - "AI Is Better Than Me" - 54:03 - The Chess Precedent - 1:02:08 - "You Do Not Know Your Value" - 1:09:39 - Math as a Public Good - 1:15:15 - What Is Math About? - 1:23:33 - The Human Moat - 1:30:01 - Feynman's Hidden Calculations - 1:39:19 - What's Truly at Stake? - 1:50:07 - Who Gets Credit Now? - 1:54:15 - What Is a Spinor? LINKS: - Richard Borcherds' Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=k8VB8MYAAAAJ - Geometric Unity: A First Look [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/Z7rd04KzLcg - Extension of Self-Dual Yang-Mills Equations Across the Eighth Dimension [Thesis]: https://www.proquest.com/docview/303973536 - Monstrous Moonshine and Monstrous Lie Superalgebras [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01232032 - Generalized Kac-Moody Algebras [Paper]: https://math.berkeley.edu/~reb/papers/gkma/gkma.pdf - What Is the Monster? [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0209328 - Renormalization and Quantum Field Theory [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.0129 - Eric Weinstein [X]: https://x.com/EricRWeinstein - The Edge of Everything [Book]: https://substack.com/@curtjaimungal/note/c-206576916 - Sharing AI Progress in Mathematics [Article]: https://openai.com/index/sharing-ai-progress-in-mathematics/ - AI Solves 79-Year-Old Six-Dimensional Sphere Mystery [Article]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-solves-79-year-old-math-mystery-of-six-dimensional-spheres/ - Scott Aaronson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3yXtXTwz4J4 - Mikhail Gromov [TOE]: coming soon - Dan Freed [TOE]: coming soon Full reading list for this episode (all 88 sources): https://curtjaimungal.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices