Lex Fridman

You do like thought experiments where you anthropomorphize, like you mentioned?

Yeah.

What do you think of somebody like Andrew Wiles who spent seven years grinding at one of the hardest problems in the history of mathematics?

And maybe contrasting that a little bit with somebody who's also brilliant, Terence Tao, who basically says if he hits a wall, he just switches to a different problem.

Maybe he comes back and so on.

So it's less of a focused grind for many years without any...

guarantee that you'll get there, which is what Andrew Wiles went through.

Maybe Gregori Perlman did the same.

Yeah, exactly.

I think when you work solo on mathematics, from my outsider perspective, it seems terrifyingly lonely.

Especially if you do stick to a single problem, especially if that problem has broken many brilliant mathematicians in the past,

You were really putting all your chips in and just the torment, the roller coaster of day to day.

Because I imagine you have these moments of hopeful mini breakthroughs and then you have to deal with the occasional realization that no, it was not a breakthrough and that disappointment.

And then you have to go like a weekly, maybe daily disappointment where you hit a wall and you have no other person to brainstorm with.

You have no other avenue to pursue.

I don't know.

The mental fortitude it takes to go through that.

But everybody's different.

Some people are recluse and just really find solace in that lone grind.

I have to ask about Grisha Grigori Pearlman.