Edward Frenkel

X squared plus Y squared equals Z squared.

We don't expect that next year suddenly it will be Z cubed.

And so that to me is actually even more, hints even more at how much we are connected to each other.

Because Pythagoras' theory, if you think about it, or any other mathematical theorem,

means the same thing to anyone in the world today, regardless of their cultural upbringing, religion, ideas, ideology, gender, whatever.

nationality, race, whatever, right?

And it has meant the same to everyone everywhere, and most likely will mean the same.

So that's to me kind of an antidote to the kind of divisiveness that we sometimes observe these days, where it seems that we can't agree on anything.

I was in the Soviet Union in 1984.

And so in many ways, I see that it was prescient.

The novel was prescient.

But we still have not found a dictator who would actually say two plus two equals five and would demand their citizens to repeat that.

Has not happened yet.

There is actually an essential difference, which is that physicists are interested in describing this universe.

Okay, mathematicians are interested in describing all possible mathematical universes of which, you know, and some of our work, I still consider myself more of a mathematician than a physicist.

My first love for physics, notwithstanding.

Mathematicians are, in a way, we have more diversity, if you might say.

So we are accepting, for instance,

our universe has three spatial dimensions and one time dimension, right?

So what I mean is that- Allegedly.