#68 - Bruce Reznick: Richard Feynman, Caltech at 16, and Why Mathematics Is Worth Doing for Its Own Sake

Bruce Reznick is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He entered Caltech at 16, studied at Stanford, and spent over four decades at Illinois thinking about mathematics, teaching, and working on problems that sometimes stayed with him for decades.

In this conversation, we talk about Richard Feynman, mathematical intuition, randomness, pattern recognition, unsolved problems, AI and theorem proving, whether mathematics is invented or discovered, and why some problems are worth spending a lifetime on. We also discuss love, luck, teaching, Caltech, Ramanujan, confirmation bias, the Champagne Problem, and Reznick’s advice for young people.

Math is groovy. *EPISODE LINKS:* - Bruce Reznick's Website: - Bruce Reznick's UIUC Website: *OUTLINE:* 0:00 - Retirement, Horses, and the 30-Hour Workweek 3:18 - Math Is Like Writing Jokes 6:10 - Dating Advice for STEM Students 10:14 - How Much of Life Is Luck? 12:29 - Love 14:37 - Can You Understand Love With Math? 17:14 - Unfinished Work as a Gift to Your Future Self 18:05 - Getting Into Caltech at 16 19:22 - Why He Became a Teacher 22:45 - Growing Up With a Mathematical Mind 24:09 - A Culture That Made It Safe to Be a Nerd 27:47 - Why Do Anything for Its Own Sake? 29:40 - Were People Ever Really in College Just to Learn? 32:35 - What Mathematicians Understand About the World 33:43 - The Beautiful Things Math Can’t Explain 35:32 - Meeting Richard Feynman at a Party 39:04 - What Made Richard Feynman Different 41:13 - Doing Quantum Mechanics Without Understanding Quantum Mechanics 43:22 - Why Caltech Was “Safe to Want to Learn” 45:17 - What Illinois Could Do Better 46:18 - How UIUC Changed During His 44 Years Here 47:37 - What COVID Did to Students 52:19 - A Math Problem He’s Been Thinking About for 40 Years 54:03 - What Makes a Problem Worth Solving? 55:57 - Why Spend Your Life Studying Polynomials? 57:00 - Ramanujan, 1729, and Why Some Numbers Feel Special 1:00:21 - Why Humans Can’t Stop Looking for Patterns 1:02:30 - The Greatest Unsolved Problems in Mathematics 1:04:23 - How Smart People Convince Themselves They’re Right 1:07:02 - Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? 1:09:44 - How a Mathematician Approaches a Problem He’s Never Seen Before 1:12:34 - How a Math Problem Ended Up on a Beer Can 1:14:10 - What We Lose When Math Becomes Too Algebraic 1:17:20 - What Is Intuition? 1:20:40 - Why Randomness Still Creates Patterns 1:22:57 - Is Mathematics Objective? 1:24:39 - Advice for Young People 🚥 Overrated or Underrated 🚥 1:25:41 - 🧮 Ramanujan 1:26:03 - 🏛️ Altgeld Hall 1:26:27 - 📐 Euler 1:26:46 - ♟️ Game Theory 1:27:47 - 📈 The Fourier Transform 1:28:23 - Can AI Discover New Mathematics? 1:29:47 - His Favorite Theorem 1:30:56 - What It’s Like to Attend a Celebration of Your Own Life 1:32:09 - Closing Words 1:33:12 - “Math Is Groovy” *Consider Supporting Us* If you enjoy our talk show and videos, your support means the world to us! Your contributions help us keep the show running and focus on creating interesting conversations with interesting people.

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