Edward Frenkel

But I think we like to play with time.

I think we like to play with these experiences, with all the drama of it, with all the memories, with all the tribulations.

We love it.

We love it.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it.

And you know, I'm glad you mentioned that because what I find fascinating is that the greatest scientists are on record

saying that when they were making their discoveries, they felt like children.

So Isaac Newton said to myself, I only appeared as a child playing on the seashore and every once in a while finding a prettier pebble or a prettier shell whilst, I think he said something like the infinite ocean of knowledge was lying before me.

Alexander Grothendieck

who probably was the greatest mathematician of the second half of the 20th century, the French mathematician Alexandre Grotendieck, wrote that discovery is a privilege of a child.

The child who is not afraid to be wrong once again, to look like an idiot, to try this and that, I'm paraphrasing, and go through trial and error.

That is for them, in other words, for them,

that innocence of a child who is not afraid, who has not yet been told that it cannot be done, okay?

That was essential to scientific pursuit, to scientific discovery.

And now also compared to Pablo Picasso, a great artist, right?

So who said every child is an artist.

The question is how to preserve that as we grow up.

Absolutely.

I mean, that's part of being human because when we grow up, I mean, all of these great scientists,

I think they were so great in part because they were able to maintain that connection, okay, and that fascination, that vulnerability, that spontaneity, you know, and kind of looking at the world through the eyes of a child.