Mathematician Edward Frenkel on finding meaning in the AI age. @London_Institute

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize. He is also the author of Love and Math—part memoir, part masterclass in mathematical storytelling—which became a New York Times bestseller and has been published in 20 languages.

In this conversation recorded on 12 December 2025, Prof. Frenkel joins London Institute Fellow Yang-Hui He and our chief science writer Ananyo Bhattacharya for a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of mathematics: from his own intellectual journey to the mysteries of the Langlands programme—often described as mathematics’ “Theory of Everything”—and the enduring power of human intuition and creativity in the age of AI.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk

00:00 Introduction and welcome
03:00 Frenkel’s childhood conversion from physics to maths.
09:12 The awesomeness of p-adic numbers.
10:21 On the nature of mathematics.
16:41 Moscow State University’s “Kafkaesque” entrance exam.
22:20 Studying at the State University of Oil and Gas.
24:39 Why Frenkel has never been back to Russia.
26:09 Recovering buried memories.
29:52 Self-knowledge key to avoiding malevolent AI.
33:00 The lessons of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
35:06 Should we welcome our new AI overlords.
37:44 What’s wrong with mathematics education in the US?
43:48 Why is the Langlands programme a ‘Theory of Everything’?
51:53 The poetry of mathematics.
52:12 The Geometric Langlands programme.
54:22 The remarkable effectiveness of mathematics in physics.
56:41 And the remarkable effectiveness of physics in mathematics.
59:04 Why AI won’t replace mathematicians.
01:12:32 Rapid-fire questions:
01:13:04 What is maths and why should people care?
01:14:51 Is there a God and does God do maths?
01:17:38 Is maths a science or is science a maths?
01:18:15 Alexander Grothendieck or John von Neumann?
01:21:18 Why and how and when should a mathematician get naked on camera?
01:25:38 Audience questions.
01:46:10 Finis.

Related links:

Edward Frenkel: edwardfrenkel.com
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality: edwardfrenkel.com/lovemath
The Quest to Prove Mathematics’ Grand Unified Theory: lims.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/d41586-025-02197-3.pdf
Why Physics Is Unreasonably Good at Creating New Math: nautil.us/why-physics-is-unreasonably-good-at-creating-new-math-797056/?_sp=35f3add2-f567-431f-a95d-5ce9ca6ff389.1725439337302
Eugene Wigner's "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences": webhomes.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
Prof. Yang-Hui He on AI maths: youtube.com/watch?v=spIquD_mBFk&t=1s

updated 8 months ago

Mathematician Edward Frenkel on finding meaning in the AI age.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-01-05 | Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize. He is also the author of Love and Math—part memoir, part masterclass in mathematical storytelling—which became a New York Times bestseller and has been published in 20 languages.

In this conversation recorded on 12 December 2025, Prof. Frenkel joins London Institute Fellow Yang-Hui He and our chief science writer Ananyo Bhattacharya for a wide-ranging discussion on the nature of mathematics: from his own intellectual journey to the mysteries of the Langlands programme—often described as mathematics’ “Theory of Everything”—and the enduring power of human intuition and creativity in the age of AI.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk

00:00 Introduction and welcome
03:00 Frenkel’s childhood conversion from physics to maths.
09:12 The awesomeness of p-adic numbers.
10:21 On the nature of mathematics.
16:41 Moscow State University’s “Kafkaesque” entrance exam.
22:20 Studying at the State University of Oil and Gas.
24:39 Why Frenkel has never been back to Russia.
26:09 Recovering buried memories.
29:52 Self-knowledge key to avoiding malevolent AI.
33:00 The lessons of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001.
35:06 Should we welcome our new AI overlords.
37:44 What’s wrong with mathematics education in the US?
43:48 Why is the Langlands programme a ‘Theory of Everything’?
51:53 The poetry of mathematics.
52:12 The Geometric Langlands programme.
54:22 The remarkable effectiveness of mathematics in physics.
56:41 And the remarkable effectiveness of physics in mathematics.
59:04 Why AI won’t replace mathematicians.
01:12:32 Rapid-fire questions:
01:13:04 What is maths and why should people care?
01:14:51 Is there a God and does God do maths?
01:17:38 Is maths a science or is science a maths?
01:18:15 Alexander Grothendieck or John von Neumann?
01:21:18 Why and how and when should a mathematician get naked on camera?
01:25:38 Audience questions.
01:46:10 Finis.

Related links:

Edward Frenkel: edwardfrenkel.com
Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality: edwardfrenkel.com/lovemath
The Quest to Prove Mathematics’ Grand Unified Theory: lims.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/d41586-025-02197-3.pdf
Why Physics Is Unreasonably Good at Creating New Math: nautil.us/why-physics-is-unreasonably-good-at-creating-new-math-797056/?_sp=35f3add2-f567-431f-a95d-5ce9ca6ff389.1725439337302
Eugene Wigner's "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences": webhomes.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
Prof. Yang-Hui He on AI maths: youtube.com/watch?v=spIquD_mBFk&t=1s

Neil Turok’s stunningly simple, testable new theory of the universe

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-11 | Prof. Neil Turok is Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh and Emeritus Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Observations of the universe across the largest and smallest accessible scales reveal a striking simplicity. In this lecture, Prof. Turok presents a minimal paradigm for cosmology that accounts for the universe’s large-scale structure, dark matter and the Standard Model without recourse to new particles, forces, extra dimensions or a multiverse.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk
Cognia AI Lab: cognia-lab.com

00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:09 Why universities are sub-optimal.
00:02:47 Observations of the universe point to incredible simplicity.
00:03:30 Theoretical physics has become complicated and produced no predictions.
00:04:31 Faraday’s philosophy of physics.
00:06:50 ΛCDM is a very good fit to existing cosmological data.
00:15:13 No deviations from the Standard Model seen at particle accelerators.
00:15:54 A unified theory might be closer than we think.
00:16:19 CPT is the most basic known symmetry in physics.
00:18:39 A mirror universe ‘behind’ the Big Bang.
00:21:30 A prediction: a new dark matter candidate.
00:30:37 A universe without inflation.
00:32:31 Doing statistical mechanics of universes.
00:38:09 A formula for the entropy of the universe.
00:41:18 Why is the universe the same in two opposite directions?
00:43:33 The universe is an incredible microscope.
00:46:32 “We’ve got the ultimate accelerator, we just have to look at it!”
00:53:18 A dipole ghost.
00:58:05 Quantising the theory.
01:06:16 The host with a ghost.
01:10:07 A renormalisable theory of quantum gravity.
01:18:32 “Maybe gravity is after all rather simple.”
01:19:01 Finis.

Neil Turok: Doing theoretical physics is like praying

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-11 | Theoretical physicist Neil Turok on why contemplating the universe is a profound privilege, akin to religious experience. Full interview with Prof. Turok youtube.com/watch?v=LE7chP_i3UU

Richard Dawkins is wrong. Science is no substitute for God.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-11 | Theoretical physicist Neil Turok says arguing that believers are stupid is wrong. Full interview with Prof. Turok youtube.com/watch?v=LE7chP_i3UU

Neil Turok: How universities stifle original thought in young people

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-08 | Universities are structured so that young scientists with original ideas are stifled from the start of their careers.

Neil Turok: I introduced Stephen Hawking to Nelson Mandela

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-05 | Stephen Hawking and Nelson Mandela sound like the ultimate dinner-party pairing. When they did meet in real life though, it was... awkward. Neil Turok was there.

Neil Turok on how theoretical physics went wrong and why universities don’t encourage originality

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-06-04 | Prof. Neil Turok is Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh and Emeritus Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

In this event, filmed on 13 May 2026, he joins the London Institute’s chief science writer Ananyo Bhattacharya to discuss his career and where the field now stands—from unresolved puzzles in cosmology and quantum gravity to the search for new guiding principles. Rejecting current approaches such as string theory and inflation, he talks about his proposal for a simpler cosmology that makes testable predictions. Turning to the opportunities and risks posed by AI, he then focuses on what the technology means for the future practice of theoretical physics.

Drawing on his experience of leading the Perimeter Institute, Prof. Turok also addresses the challenges of building and sustaining institutes for fundamental research: how to set priorities, nurture talent and create environments in which new ideas can flourish.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk
Cognia AI Lab: cognia-lab.com

00:00 Introduction and welcome
03:00 The universe is simpler than anyone expected.
05:11 New hope for a grand unified theory?
08:01 Turok explains his model of the universe in three minutes.
10:01 What ideas in theoretical physics need to be retired?
13:06 A falsifiable hypothesis: right-handed neutrinos are dark matter.
21:40 The B-Meson anomaly at the LHC.
22:49 “I’ve worked on several theories which have been proven wrong. And I’m very happy about that.”
23:05 Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s approach to doing physics.
25:14 Lessons from parents and childhood: don’t be afraid of challenging convention.
27:00 Why biology is more interesting-–and harder—than physics.
30:06 Advice to young physicists.
31:11 Why agree to run an institute?
36:27 How the Perimeter Institute began.
38:05 “Universities are organised incredibly badly in terms of encouraging truly original thinking.”
40:08 Building up the Perimeter.
42:46 What universities get wrong about doctoral training.
52:43 “If AI can do it, I’m not interested in it.”
53:24 AI is too dominated by conventional interpretations.
56:06 What sort of person will make the next big breakthrough in theoretical physics?
57:26 Rapid-fire questions:
57:54 What is the most important quality in a great theorist?
58:17 Are we living through a golden age of theoretical physics or a stagnation?
59:56 As a cosmologist, what do you think are the chances of there being intelligent life in the galaxy?
01:01:57 What question should I have asked you but didn’t?
01:03:03 “I introduced Stephen Hawking to Nelson Mandela.”
01:05:27 Audience questions.
01:16:38 Finis.

Related links:

Prof. Neil Turok public lecture: The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything youtube.com/watch?v=f1x9lgX8GaE

Yang-Hui He on the hidden mathematics behind music

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-04-23 | Between a piano recital by the Ukrainian brothers Alexei and Sasha Grynyuk, the London Institute’s Prof. Yang-Hui He offered a brief mathematical interlude on pattern, harmony and variation in music. In just ten elegant minutes, he ranges from Pythagoras and the beauty of simple ratios to the arithmetic behind tonality, the origins of the 12-tone Western scale, the pentatonic scale and 24-tone systems reminiscent of Indian music.

The talk so captivated the audience that we asked Prof. He to deliver it again so it could be recorded and shared here.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk

00:00 Introduction
00:38 “Musicians, if a pianist ever bullies you, just ask them if they can play this”
00:55 Pythagoras–cult leader and musicologist
03:36 Tonality exists because 2 and 3 are co-prime
05:40 A single Diophantine approximation explains the world’s scales
08:26 The circle of 5th is a lie!
08:42 The next approximation is (almost) the Indian scale
09:36 Finis

Stephen Wolfram says LLMs show consciousness isn’t mystical–it’s just physics.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-03-31 | Why does consciousness feel like a continuous thread? Stephen Wolfram argues there’s nothing mystical about it—LLMs already mimic many traits of mind, yet are just neural nets.

How entanglement explains the mystery of matter

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-03-13 | Frank Verstraete is Leigh Trapnell Professor of Quantum Physics at Cambridge University. A century after the Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger published his famous quantum wave equation, the complexity of quantum many-body systems remains one of the central challenges of physics.

In this lecture, Prof. Verstraete shows how entanglement breaks this impasse through the development of tensor networks. He explains how such tensor networks provide a powerful framework for efficiently representing and simulating strongly correlated matter, turning seemingly intractable problems into structured, computable ones.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk
Cognia AI Lab: cognia-lab.com

00:00 Introduction
00:35 What links Jackson Pollock and Bach’s The Art of Fugue?
01:39 The quantum many-body problem and the Schrödinger equation.
03:44 Why the complete problem can’t be solved. How quantum computers could help.
05:40 But for real materials we only need to understand behaviour at low energies.
07:45 Area laws for entanglement entropy.
09:14 A brief history of entanglement theory.
11:23 The monogamy property of entanglement.
14:21 The role of tensor networks.
19:12 Key concepts.
21:42 Realising Feynman’s dream.
23:12 A new perspective on fundamental problems.
24:05 Computational aspects.
28:01 Tensor networks debunking quantum supremacy claims.
28:58 Quantum phases of matter.
36:03 Topological phases.
42:19 Physics of matter in higher dimensions.
49:59 Generalised Wigner-Eckert theorem.
51:33 Solving the magnetic monopole scattering puzzle.
54:32 Generalised LSM theorem.
56:23 Generalised symmetries and dualities.
1:01:10 Careful with the boundary conditions, Eugene.
1:01:36 Relevance to experiments.
1:03:14 Finis.

Prof. Edward Frenkel on why kids needs good math teachers more then good English teachers.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-01-07 | ...

Mathematician Edward Frenkel on the secret of life.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-01-07 | ...

Prof. Edward Frenkel on the human edge in the age of AI.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2026-01-07 | ...

Stephen Wolfram tackles the big questions—from God and free will to whether AI will destroy us all.

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2025-10-20 | Dr Stephen Wolfram is one of the most restless and original talents in science. Since publishing his first paper in particle physics at just 15, he has created the pioneering software Mathematica, launched the knowledge engine WolframAlpha and developed a radical new framework for fundamental physics. Here, Dr Wolfram sits down with our director Thomas Fink and science writer Ananyo Bhattacharya to talk about the big questions. What are the deepest challenges facing science today? How should research be organised and communicated? And how might AI-assisted discovery transform maths and physics?

In a rapid-fire round towards the end of the session, we give Dr Wolfram 90 seconds each to answer questions such as “How far away is Artificial General Intelligence?”, “Is there a God?”, “Do we have free will?” and “Are we in the midst of an AI market bubble?”

Finally, we take questions from our invited audience of scientists, tech entrepreneurs, actors and writers.

The London Institute is Britain’s only independent, privately funded theoretical physics institute. We are building an endowment of £60m, with a lead gift of £20m already secured. To find out more see lims.ac.uk/e6

0:00 Introduction and welcome
3:50 How does or should history of science play into contemporary discovery?
6:25 “The patent office was the Silicon Valley of its time.”
7:42 “The rate of growth in new fields is just so much greater than it is in well-developed institutionalized fields.”
8:35 On Richard Feynman.
9:00 Return to the foundations of established fields to make progress.
10:35 Why does physics say so little about the foundations of life?
12:47 Wolfram’s new work on cellular automata as a model of biology.
23:22 Contributions to AI-assisted discovery and how LLMs might contribute.
26:20 What is the role of the human mathematician?
30:55 Mathematics as an artistic endeavour.
33:41 What is science?
40:10 Building a discovery machine.
43:20 Why should societies support basic science?
47:13 “I haven't written a paper for an academic journal since 1986. So, I'm out of that business.”
49:38 The benefits of good science communication.
51:40 The secret to Stephen Wolfram’s productivity.
53:05 Rapid-fire questions:
53:42 What’s wrong with science today?
54:38 Is there a God?
57:07 Do we have free will?
58:40 Are we in the midst of an AI market bubble?
59:53 How far away is Artifical General Intelligence–and are you afraid of it?
1:01:43 What is the most intelligent species on Earth: the squid or the dolphin?
1:02:21 What will Mathematica look like in 2030?
1:05:03 Alexander Grothendieck or John von Neumann. Pick one.
1:07:25 Audience questions
1:36:58 Finis

London Institute for Mathematical Sciences: lims.ac.uk
Cognia AI Lab: cognia-lab.com