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you open your book love and math with a
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question
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how does one become a mathematician
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there are many ways that this can happen
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let me tell you how it happened to me so
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how did it happen to you so first of all
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I grew up in the Soviet Union
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in a small town near Moscow
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called columna
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and I was a smart kid you know in school
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but mathematics was probably my least
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favorite subject
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not because I couldn’t do it I was you
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know a straight A student and I could do
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all the problems easily but I thought it
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was incredibly boring
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and
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um since the only math I knew was what
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was presented at school
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I thought that was it and I was like
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what kind of boring subject is this so
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what I really liked was physics
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and especially quantum physics so I was
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buying uh I was I would go to a
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bookstore and buy popular books about
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elementary particles
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and atoms and things like that and read
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them you know devour them
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and so I thought my dream was to become
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a theoretical physicist
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and to delve into this finer structure
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of the universe you know so then
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something happened when I was 15 years
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old uh it turns out that a friend of my
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parents
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was a mathematician who was a professor
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at the local College it was a small
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College preparing Educators teachers
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it’s a provincial Town imagine it’s like
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a 117 kilometers from Moscow which would
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be something like 70 miles I guess you
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do the math I like how you remember the
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number exactly yeah it’s not funny how
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we remember numbers yeah so his name was
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evgeny evgenievich Petrov yeah and if
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this doesn’t remind you of the great
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works of Russian literature then you
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haven’t read them
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like War and Peace you know like with
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the patronym nicknames but this was all
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real this was all happening so my mom
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One Day by chance met ige and told him
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about me
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but that was this bright kid and
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interested in physics
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and he said oh I want to meet him I’m
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going to convert him into math
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and my mom’s like nah mask he doesn’t
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like mathematics so they said okay let’s
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let’s see what they can do
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so I went to see him so I’m about 15.
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and a bit a bit uh arrogant I would say
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you know like average teenager
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so he says to me
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so I hear that you are
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um interested in in physics Elementary
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particles it’s like yeah sure
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and so for example do you know about
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quarks
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and I said yes of course I know what
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quarks quarks are the you know
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constituents
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of particles like protons and neutrons
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and it was one of the greatest
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discoveries in theoretical physics in
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the 60s that those particles were not
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Elementary but in fact had the smaller
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parts
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and he said oh so then you probably know
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representation theory of the group su3
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this is like I see words so
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in fact
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I wanted to know what was what were the
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underpinnings of those theories I knew
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the story I knew the narrative a new
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kind of this basic story of what this
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particles looked like but how did
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physicists come up with these ideas
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how were they able to theorize them
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and so I remembered you know like it was
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yesterday so he pulls out a book
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and it’s kind of like like a Bible you
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know like like a substantial book and he
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opens them somewhere in the middle and
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there I see the diagrams that I saw in
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popular books but in popular b
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would actually say two plus two equals
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five and would demand their citizens to
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repeat that
ooks there
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was no explanation and now I see all
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these weird symbols and equations it’s
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clear that it is explained in there oh
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my God
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he said you think what they teach you at
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school is mathematics
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it’s like no this is real mathematics
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so I was instantly converted
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that you understand the underpinnings of
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physical reality
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you have to understand what su3 is you
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have to learn what are groups what this
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group su3 what are representations of
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sc3 there was a coherent
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and beautiful I could appreciate the
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beauty even though I could not
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understand
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heads and tails of it but you were drawn
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to the the methodology the
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the the Machinery of all such
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understanding could be attained well in
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retrospect I think what I was really
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craving was a deeper understanding
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and up to that point the deepest that I
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could see was for those diagrams but for
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that story that you know a proton
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consists of three quarks and the neutron
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consists of trick works and they’re
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called up and down and so on
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but I didn’t know
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that there was actually underneath
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beneath the surface there was this
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mathematical theory if you can just link
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around it what Drew you to quantum
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mechanics
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is there some romantic notion of
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understanding the universe well what is
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interesting to you is it the puzzle of
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it or is it like the philosophical thing
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now I am looking back yeah so um
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whatever I say about Edward at 15 yeah
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is colored by
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uh my you know all my experiences that
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happen in in the meantime I should say
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current views and so on for the people
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who may not know you I think your book
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and your presentations kind of revealed
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that that 15 year old is still in there
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somewhere well hmm
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yeah I think it was a joy of Discovery
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and the joy of going deeper into the
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kind of the
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uh to the root uh to the so the deepest
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structures of the universe the secrets
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the the secrets and we may not discover
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all of them we may not be able to
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understand but we’re going to try and go
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as far and as deep as we can I think
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that’s what was the motivating factor in
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this
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yeah there’s this mystery there’s this
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dark room and there’s a few of these
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mathematical physicists they’re able to
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shine
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a flashlight briefly into there
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uh we’ll we’ll talk about it but it also
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kind of makes me sad that there’s so few
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of your kind that have the the
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flashlight to look into the room
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it’s interesting
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um I don’t think there are so few to be
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honest because I think I find a lot of
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people are actually interested if you do
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talk if you talk to people you know like
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some people you wouldn’t expect to uh to
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be interested in this uh from all walks
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of life from people of
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all kinds of professions I tell them I’m
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a mathematician and the mathematician
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okay so that’s a separate story a lot of
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people I think have been traumatized by
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their experience in their math classes
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we can talk about it later but then they
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ask me what kind of research I do and
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I I mentioned that I I work on the
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interface of math and quantum physics
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and their eyes light up and say oh
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quantum physics or like Einstein’s
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relativity I’m really curious about it I
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watched this podcast or I watch that
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podcast you know and I’ve learned this
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it’s like what do you think about that
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so I actually find that that actually
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physicists are doing great job at
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educating
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the public so to speak and uh in terms
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of
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um
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popular books and videos and so on
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mathematicians are behind that we’re
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starting to catch up a little bit have
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been starting last 10 years but when
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we’re still behind but I think people
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are people are curious
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science is a is still a very much uh you
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know something that people want to learn
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because that’s our kind of uh the best
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way we know to establish some sort of
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objective reality whatever that might be
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yeah to figure out this whole puzzle to
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figure out the secrets that the Universe
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holds things that we can agree on kind
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of you know like even though for me at
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this point I always you know make an
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argument that our physical theorists
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always change they get updated so you
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had Newton’s theory of gravity
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then um Einstein’s theory you know
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superseded it
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but in mathematics
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it seems that theories don’t change
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Pythagoras Theorem
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has been the same for the last 2500
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years x squared plus y squared equals z
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squared we don’t expect that next year
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suddenly it will be z cubed you know so
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and so that to me is actually even more
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um hints even more at home how how much
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we are connected to each other because
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dagger’s theory if you think about it or
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any other mathematical theorem
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means the same thing to anyone in the
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world today regardless of their cultural
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you know bringing uh religion you know
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ideas ideal ideology gender whatever
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nationality race whatever right and it
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has meant the same to everyone
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everywhere and most likely will mean the
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same
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so that’s to me kind of an antidote
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to the kind of
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divisiveness that we sometimes observe
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these days where it seems that we can’t
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agree on anything
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to the political complexity of uh two
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plus two equals five and George Orwell’s
9:5I was in the Soviet Union in 1984
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and so in many ways I see that it was
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President the novel was present but we
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still have not found the dictator who
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would actually say two plus two equals
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five and would demand their citizens to
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repeat that the Knight is still young
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has not happened yet