WEBVTT 00:00:02.980 --> 00:00:05.759 Hi, yesterday I talked about being in a room 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.519 with other people, but today I'd like to make 00:00:08.519 --> 00:00:12.759 that room a little bigger. Actually, much bigger. 00:00:13.560 --> 00:00:16.440 Imagine I'm sitting alone at my desk working 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.420 on a math problem. There is no one else in the 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:24.019 room. And suppose I'm using geometry. Well, in 00:00:24.019 --> 00:00:28.640 some sense, Euclid is there. Maybe I'm working 00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:33.000 with calculus. Newton on my left. Lightness on 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.579 my right. Well, perhaps the problem involves 00:00:36.579 --> 00:00:40.939 the number pi or the number e. Well, now Euler 00:00:40.939 --> 00:00:44.359 has entered the room. Of course, I don't mean 00:00:44.359 --> 00:00:48.380 they're literally sitting besides me. But their 00:00:48.380 --> 00:00:54.320 ideas are. And I find that remarkable. I mean, 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:58.020 Euclid lived more than 2 ,000 years ago, and 00:00:58.020 --> 00:01:00.939 I can still open the elements. and encounter 00:01:00.939 --> 00:01:05.319 the math ideas that he was thinking about. Euler 00:01:05.319 --> 00:01:12.159 died in 1783, and yet E is in many of my equations. 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:18.340 Mathematics allows ideas to travel through time. 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:24.159 But this room even gets bigger. None of these 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:29.180 mathematicians worked alone either. Their discoveries... 00:01:29.549 --> 00:01:33.209 grew from ideas that came before them. They had 00:01:33.209 --> 00:01:36.489 teachers. They had colleagues. They read other 00:01:36.489 --> 00:01:40.469 people's work. They disagreed with people. They 00:01:40.469 --> 00:01:43.709 made mistakes. And then someone else picked up 00:01:43.709 --> 00:01:46.609 their ideas and carried them a little further. 00:01:47.590 --> 00:01:52.170 And that is how mathematics arrives at my desk. 00:01:53.310 --> 00:01:56.590 Someone handed something to someone who handed 00:01:56.590 --> 00:02:00.329 something to someone else. And eventually, someone 00:02:00.329 --> 00:02:05.069 handed it to me. And now, I get to participate 00:02:05.069 --> 00:02:11.729 in that same process. So, when I teach a student, 00:02:11.889 --> 00:02:14.870 or when I share an interesting problem with a 00:02:14.870 --> 00:02:18.270 friend, or when I create something through intersecting 00:02:18.270 --> 00:02:22.650 us, I'm passing along something that was first 00:02:22.650 --> 00:02:26.669 given to me. And maybe the person receiving it 00:02:26.669 --> 00:02:30.189 will see something that I never saw. I do hope 00:02:30.189 --> 00:02:33.449 so. And there's something humbling about thinking 00:02:33.449 --> 00:02:37.050 this way. Because it's easy to talk about my 00:02:37.050 --> 00:02:41.870 ideas or my work. But very little of what I know 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:47.389 began with me. I'm part of a much larger story. 00:02:47.949 --> 00:02:52.050 In fact, mathematics might be one of the longest 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:58.819 conversations. humanity has ever had. I find 00:02:58.819 --> 00:03:02.500 that amazing. A conversation stretching across 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:05.860 countries, cultures, languages, and thousands 00:03:05.860 --> 00:03:09.800 of years. And every once in a while, I get to 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:13.259 add a sentence and then someone else gets to 00:03:13.259 --> 00:03:17.360 respond. I just like that picture of community. 00:03:18.099 --> 00:03:21.500 We are receiving something together and we are 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:25.599 exploring it together. And then we are passing 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:26.259 it on.