Lex Fridman

Maybe you can comment on why did he put that as number one?

And so eventually, continuum hypothesis was shown to be independent from ZFC axioms, as we've mentioned.

So what, how does that make you feel?

And what is independence?

It's just such a fascinating technique, tool of forcing.

Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing it, but it seems like a way to escape one mathematical universe into another, or to expand it, or to alter it, sort of travel between mathematical universes.

Can you explain the technique of forcing?

Yeah, exactly.

And we should mention, maybe this is a good place to even give a bigger picture.

One of your more controversial ideas in mathematics, as laid out in the paper, The Set Theoretic Multiverse, you describe

that there may not be one true mathematics, but rather multiple mathematical universes.

And forcing is one of the techniques that gets you from one to the other.

So can you explain the whole shebang?

Yeah, sure.

And by the way, to reiterate, independent means it cannot be proved or disproved within this axiomatic system, within this theory.

You can't refute it.

That's why the statement is so traumatic or sad that most of the interesting stuff, as you said, has been shown to be independent of ZFC.

Carving nature at its joints.

So what can you do about the things that are shown to be independent from ZFC?

So what are the techniques?