Michio Kaku - Why the ‘Unreasonable Effectiveness’ of Mathematics?

Показать описание

What is it about mathematics that it can describe so accurately the world around us? From quantum physics, the very smallest features and forces of the foundations of matter and energy, to cosmology, the very largest structures and forces of the beginning and evolution of the universe, mathematics is the language of description. Why does the physical world follow so faithfully equations of abstract symbols and variables?

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics; he has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film; and he writes extensive online blogs and articles. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011).

Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

Рекомендации по теме

Комментарии

Glad they were able to find a suitable parking garage to have this discussion in.

mickeybrumfield

Michio Kaku is really good at interviewing himself.

guaromiami

Turn on captions and you'll read "supersymmetry is a cemetery of string theory it is the biggest cemetery known to science".

ThalesPo

I think Michio is trying to secretly tell us he's being held hostage

therealtigertalk

I swear Michio walks around all day talking to himself memorizing his answers to any question that could ever be asked to him

MattHanr

I know many other scientist get credit for explaining things in a simple manner, but Michio stands above the rest in his explanations.

Carlos-fhwk

Always a pleasure listening to michio.

TheMrgoodmanners

Hm. It feels like Kaku is partly circumventing these really intelligent questions in order to sell the string theory. On the other side the argument that inconsistent theories rule out themselves sounds very plausible. But I cannot believe that string theory is the only consistent theory candidate of everything.

DrMax

I don't why Robert had to ask Michio about why the inverse square law is an exact square when Ed "Brain on Legs" Witten had already explained it to him in a previous episode. When Ed tells you something, it's golden...

slappop

I feel like he answered the question, about as well as it could be answered. The mathematics of String theory, does seem to be the most effective, at describing everything we know, (so far). It took Einstein's theory and went a step further. Einstein's theory, stops at the edge of a black hole. String theory, goes into and includes it. As technology advances, and as the human brain advances, we'll be able to detect and measure more. And maybe then perhaps, we'll expand into an even greater more encompassing, in depth theory. The God theory, as they mention, or closer to it...

edhiett

Part of the problem is getting cause and effect backwards or causation vs. correlation backwards and such, which is a common problem when people think about things. The question about the inverse square law is one good example. He seemed to see this as some magical thing that it comes out that way. But it only comes out that way because Pi, which is a completely irrational number that had to be worked out over a long period of time, is used to bridge the connection between radius and volume. There's nothing clean and obvious about Pi as a value. It's just a reflection of a (very messy and non-obvious) physical reality that we can measure.

Anyhoo, math works because it is about patterns and relationships. And, at least at the macroscopic level, the universe is full of patterns and relationships, because it is not random. Those relationships may not be clean and obvious (like Pi), but they are there. If you need to notate numerical and spatial relationships that exist in nature, obviously you'll use math because it's the natural language in which to express those relationships and patterns concisely. You could do it in prose, bu it wouldn't be very practical.

Once we get to the very random quantum world, then math doesn't work nearly so well, other than at a statistical level, because those clean and fixed patterns and relationships are not there.

deanroddey

Michio Kaku speaks so much eloquantly, beautifully and in a simple language, that any layman can this short video post, in between, Dr. Kaku made the things so clear that I myself felt as if I am face to face with God and which is so simple to this also helps me in validating concept of pure consciousness as described in the Hindu Vedic course, Dr. Robert L Kuhn's approach in getting out the best from the mind of the opposite party is also best...his patience ( most of the times, he knows what the other person is going to answer, what word / sentence but he allows other person to confirm it patientially.), way of asking the questions & extracting the best possible answer... asking the right question for best possible answer, always humble.... sometimes I feel he has been send by God himself to unfold the truth for us viewers in best possible way in our life span.... thanks 🙏.

dr.satishsharma