Phymaths podcast # 58 || Dr. John Baez

*Description*Dr. John Baez is a theoretical physicist and mathematician, previously at UC Riverside and now at the University of Edinburgh, who works on Quantum Gravity, Network Theory, and higher categories. The list of his works is linked below.*Some links*1) Dr. Baez's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/10176892) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/*Contact Info*My website: hassaansaleem.comFollow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1XFollow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHYEmail Queries: [email protected]*Time stamps*(0:00) Coming up(1:23) Intro of the guest(1:42) His current projects(6:25) Octonions(15:44) Octonions and quantum logic(21:49) Knot theory(28:53) Other Knot invriants(31:04) His categorification program(45:51) Categories and Russell's program(53:45) Future directions for the program(1:01:56) Generalized symmetries(1:06:23) Topos theory(1:12:54) Network theory(1:19:32) OPen networks and compositionality(1:29:07) This Week's findings in Mathematical Physics(1:33:41) The crackpot index(1:42:00) New entry in the crackpot index(1:43:15) AI and future of physics(1:50:01) Advent of Computers vs advent of AI(1:56:02) Sphere packing and practical applications(1:58:14) Unsolved problems in physics(2:05:16) Mathematical rigor of QFT(2:11:28) Dealing with failure in research(2:18:10) (People's question) Beauty as a guide(2:20:25) (People's question) Undergrad math(2:22:23) (People's question) Retaining knowledge(2:25:23) (People's question) "Foolish" idea that was good(2:27:18) (People's question) Moving sofa problem(2:29:31) (People's question) Unsolved problems in maths