Jed Buchwald: Isaac Newton and the Philosophy of Science | Lex Fridman Podcast #214

Jed Buchwald is a historian and philosopher of science at Caltech. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

EPISODE LINKS:

PODCAST INFO:

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:31 - How does science progress?
16:44 - Theory of Everything
28:37 - Consciousness
32:12 - Most Beautiful Moments in Science
39:57 - Isaac Newton
1:06:10 - Competition in Science
1:16:44 - Newton's Career
1:29:55 - Importance of Data
1:36:13 - Alchemy
1:40:28 - Newton and Religion
1:43:41 - Showing Newton the future
1:48:25 - Newton and Einstein

SOCIAL:

[lexfridman]

Here are the timestamps. Please check out our sponsors to support this podcast.
0:00 - Introduction & sponsor mentions:
0:31 - How does science progress?
16:44 - Theory of Everything
28:37 - Consciousness
32:12 - Most Beautiful Moments in Science
39:57 - Isaac Newton
1:06:10 - Competition in Science
1:16:44 - Newton's Career
1:29:55 - Importance of Data
1:36:13 - Alchemy
1:40:28 - Newton and Religion
1:43:41 - Showing Newton the future
1:48:25 - Newton and Einstein

[alirezaamani]

Having watched some of the same intellectuals having conversations with other ppl (podcasts), I am amazed how simply brilliant Lex is doing what he is doing. He can take all these extremely erudite and intelligent guests, from fields different that his own expertise, to some great depth and interesting areas that both the listeners and the guests thoroughly enjoy. The questions that he asks sometimes are well-thought beforehand, and those followups can only come from a brilliant mind. (A lot of teenagers and young ppl gonna be pursuing science in the future simply bcz of the pure joy they can get from listening to these conversations. )

[OnePissedOffHippie]

Man, Lex. You have some of the most important conversations on your show. My hat is off to you and Jed for this wild ride. 🖤

[jonathanwalther]

Lex, I repeat myself: I am very very greatful to all the miraculous circumstances which led to this extensive series of so valuable conversations. It's a real gem.
If I could suggest some guests, these would be: Robert Sapolsky, Steven Pinker, Irvin Yalom, Jorge Bucay, Yuval Harari, Erik Demaine, Robert Lang, Jennifer Doudna/Emmauelle Charpentier, Ajahn Brahm, Thich Nhat Hanh.

[alanbooth]

what a wonderful learned and interesting man Jed is- he brings to life the history of science conveying just how massive these leaps were - so important to inform how and where we go now.We take for granted these past discoveries as if easy and now obvious but far from that - we can never take for granted the obvious and feel it needs no explanation

[DanielAnderssonmoppedanne]

When will David Deutsch be on the podcast? 🌏

His case for optimism is insane smart, logic and usefull 🥰

[TheRacingMonkey]

I looove the way the Jed talks, incredibly captivating!

[ChrisVallejos]

What a brilliant man and conversation. So many insights here.

[konstantin]

28:40 "Can you talk about consciousness? I'm asking for a friend. Trying to figure this thing out..." LMAO

[jidah]

Just came across this channel and love it. I especially enjoy the humor and low-key confidence of the interviewer. Will definitely be listening to more.

[mikepi]

Lex, you keep on saying "Thank you for listening". While it should be us saying" Thank you for opportunity to be listening to your episodes". Love your stuff and approach.

[I_Lemaire]

Lex is the man. Just the ultimate inspiration for living well in the 21st century. I don't wish to to gas you up but to express my deepest thanks and I thank God for you.

[Lenon]

I love this podcast so much. Never stop. You get me through the day

[uguptuzirby]

I like how @1:29:55 something happens with Lex and he outputs the placeholder <data> instead of a meaningful noun three times in a row, but mr. Buchwald proceeds with the answer as if nothing happened.
Anyway, great conversation! Buchwald is a great storyteller, and I'd love to read a book by him on these topics!

[missh]

It literally takes hours to watch ... and another day stolen darn it! But that was crazy cool. Thank you Lex!

[cogoid]

Professor Buchwald was a pleasure to listen to -- such a great mind, so much patience!

I am very grateful to Lex for bringing such people in and allowing us to hear them in such an informal atmosphere. ( Plus the quality of sound recording in these podcasts is always top notch -- very professional! )

[Alex-hueg]

"For alchemy is the mother of the essential substance as well as the concreteness of modern scientific thinking, and not scholasticism, which was responsible in the main only for the discipline and training of the intellect." ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 266.

[parkernaugle]

Really enjoy these types of guests, great podcast as always!

[QRSTUVWXYZify]

I didn't set out to catch up some podcast episodes ( had gotten behind a month ). Didn't need this one.
Cannot say it is relevant in any immediate way to current challenges. Should have been writing software.
But, DAMN! I enjoyed this. LOTS. Thank you.

[unknownPLfan]

I'm pleasantly surprised at how much new stuff this interviewed covered. I think this is the advantage of these long form interviews - I've heard stories about Newton a million times and it's boring at this point because they're in every network TV science documentary and they're always presented in really shallow ways that make you think nothing happened between the time of Newton and Einstein (what, no William Rowan Hamilton? No Fresnel? Fourier? lots of science happened in between).

Sometime after 1:36:00, in the alchemy section, he brings up George Starkey, an Alchemist I had never heard of, and was interested in hearing about simply because I had no idea there were contemporaries to Newton contributing to the science of the day this far back in history who were from the New World. Starkey enrolled at Harvard in 1643 - this was only a bit over a decade after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony. And I guess facts like this stick out to me because I grew up in the Boston area.