Edward Frenkel: The Test
The Story Collider
Story Collider, Inc.
4.4 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2014
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Edward Frenkel is told he won't be accepted to a Russian university because his father is Jewish, he decides to take the admissions exam anyway. Edward Frenkel is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1997 after being on the faculty at Harvard University. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and the winner of the Hermann Weyl Prize in mathematical physics. Frenkel has authored 3 books and over 80 scholarly articles in academic journals, and he has lectured on his work around the world. His YouTube videos have garnered over 3 million views. Frenkel's latest book "Love and Math" was a New York Times bestseller and has been named one of the Best Books of 2013 by both Amazon and iBooks. It is being translated into 14 languages. Frenkel has also co-produced, co-directed and played the lead in the film "Rites of Love and Math."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A science story, huh? |
| 0:04.0 | Is NYU a scientist? |
| 0:06.0 | I felt it. |
| 0:07.0 | I was so... |
| 0:09.0 | And I just thought, well... |
| 0:10.0 | It was that golden moment. |
| 0:13.0 | Because science was on my side. Hey, everyone, I'm Ben Lilly, and welcome to the Story Collider, where we bring you true personal stories about science. |
| 0:32.0 | This episode is brought to you by shutterstock.com. With over 40 million high-quality stock images, |
| 0:37.4 | Shutterstock helps take your creative projects to the next level. |
| 0:40.4 | New accounts will receive 20% off any image subscription. |
| 0:43.2 | Go to Shutterstock.com and use offer code, |
| 0:46.1 | Collider 914. |
| 0:48.4 | This week's story is from Edward Frankel. |
| 0:50.5 | The story was recorded in September 2014 |
| 0:53.4 | at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City. |
| 1:01.0 | So, what can I tell you? |
| 1:05.0 | I grew up in a small town in Russia. |
| 1:09.0 | It was called Column. I was a good student. I was a straight-age student, |
| 1:15.3 | but mathematics was my least favorite subject. It's true. I thought, you know, it was easy, |
| 1:23.0 | but I thought it was so boring and stale and irrelevant. |
| 1:28.3 | Because all I knew about mathematics was what they taught me at school, |
| 1:33.3 | and I didn't find it very exciting. |
... |
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