Why is Mathematics True and Beautiful? | Episode 2201 | Closer To Truth

Does mathematics have two transcendent attributes: truth and beauty? What makes math true? What makes math beautiful? Are there different kinds of mathematical existence? How can math combine idealized perfection and explanatory simplicity?

Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Edward Witten, Max Tegmark, Sabine Hossenfelder, and Jim Holt.

Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, 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.

[devil_pls]

I can't believe how much new stuff you are still putting out after all these years. Thank you so much!!

[patientson]

Breath is Truth. Beauty is acquired by a journey of moving closer to Truth. Amazing 👏

[chester-chickfunt]

...Because math is one of the Rosetta Stones that allows us to understand the Information that is fundamental to this Universe. That's why.

[BlueSky-vbih]

An amazing episode. As an Engineer I love math and I get a lot of inspirations from these interviews. Thank you Robert

[SSJGodan]

Thank you for continuing to put these out - nothing helps the discourse more than open, free information accessible to all. Great video!

[craigswanson]

Dr. Hossenfelder proving again that she’s thinking light-years ahead of her colleagues. Way to go, Sabine!

[mediocrates]

Coherence is the ground of existence. The brain started as a comfort finder and is in us becoming a coherence detector. Keep at it, Bobby!

[zcydssh]

'Truth is beauty. Beauty truth.
That is all we know and all we need to know'
Keats

[mothercrazy]

Beautiful episode Robert and team. This is such a satisfying episode having followed the PBS show and your transition to online. An engaging group of guests who I imagine many were avidly requesting. The editing is minimalist and completely fits the previous seasons while feeling fresh. Can’t wait for the next episode!!

[ethioutopia]

I want Robert to stay young and live longer So He keep digging more This is exciting.
Thanks Robert!

[brothermine]

Math is an abstraction, not part of the physical world. But it helps us understand and describe the physical world.
It should be noted that math theorems, although true, don't necessarily describe our world if any of their axioms & assumptions aren't true of our world. Axioms & assumptions can't be proved mathematically; we build "rational confidence" in them by conducting experiments that attempt to falsify them. Rational confidence falls short of certainty because a future experiment might falsify, or because some other set(s) of axioms & assumptions might also be consistent with the experiments that have been done.
"Beauty" in math proves nothing. It's usually equivalent to "simplicity." The relevant heuristic is that if you need to bet on one of a set of competing theories, bet on the simplest. (This doesn't imply the bet will pay off.)

[lwssy]

Thanks much for the round of enlightening viewpoints. To me Mathematics is a free flight of human spirit, hence the need for abstract beauty. As for its endless usefulness, one may recall E P Wigner's remark on the mathematical language: "... a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve". The topic has always attracted lots of attention, and this will continue generation after generation... (I do hope so!!!).

[stewartkilleen]

Great show as always! "Multiplicity in unity." Footnote to Plato, perhaps. Heaven knows where we get these intuitions! Even though I feel mathematics and beauty has some relationship, Sabine Hosselfelder makes a very good and thought-provoking argument. 👌

[netuno]

Great video. Thank you so much. I almost understand 45%.

[ReynaSingh]

Interesting episode and next we’ll need a series on what we mean by true

[pazitor]

Thank you for this episode. Truly enjoyable.

[joakimharbak]

Today I found this channel, and today I fell in love with it! These are the questions I have been asking myself for years, thank you for discussing these topics!

[larrywebber]

Absolutely beautiful episode! Thank You!

[alexanderpeca]

Thanks again Robert for the awesome content ❤
It never stops to amaze me that we are still moving along the lines drawn by Plato/Socrates more that 2K years ago.

It also also interesting that most of these highly intelligent and accomplished people equates beauty with simplicity.

I think Sabine is spot on btw.

[brianlebreton]

Love this approach. Very difficult topic. I like to think the answers lie in the unification of simplicity and complexity, where the two ends asymptotes meet somewhere in positive and negative infinity. I feel like when I try to imagine infinity, I’m knocking on the door of what is true, real forever and in that perfection, beautiful. That said, I feel my brain/mind will never be able to know infinity, only aspire to it like a compass direction.