The Language of the Universe with Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown)

About This Episode

Why can’t you divide by zero? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice discuss higher dimensions, dividing by zero, and math’s unsolved questions with math YouTuber Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown).

We explore the Clay Millennium Problems: seven unsolved puzzles in mathematics, with a 1 million dollar prize. Grant shares his early fascination with the Twin Prime Conjecture. Are there infinitely many pairs of prime numbers that differ by two? We pivot to the Navier-Stokes equations and the question of whether fluid flow can produce infinite energy density. How do physics and math come together?

Neil recites the quadratic formula, launching a historical discussion on why equations of degree five or higher can’t be solved with a general formula, and how that impossibility gave rise to Galois theory. Listeners ask about dividing by zero, conformal geometry, tensor products, and category theory. Chuck gets lost.

We explore irrational numbers, why they’re called that, and why they are useful for physicists. We break down how Klein bottles work as four-dimensional objects. One listener asks if a new branch of math could solve the three-body problem. Plus, if the team were two-dimensional shapes, in Flatland, what would they be?

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