Grant Sanderson is a math educator and creator of 3Blue1Brown, a popular YouTube channel that uses programmatically-animated visualizations to explain concepts in linear algebra, calculus, and other fields of mathematics.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon.

This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”. 

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

00:00 – Introduction

01:56 – What kind of math would aliens have?

03:48 – Euler’s identity and the least favorite piece of notation

10:31 – Is math discovered or invented?

14:30 – Difference between physics and math

17:24 – Why is reality compressible into simple equations?

21:44 – Are we living in a simulation?

26:27 – Infinity and abstractions

35:48 – Most beautiful idea in mathematics

41:32 – Favorite video to create

45:04 – Video creation process

50:04 – Euler identity

51:47 – Mortality and meaning

55:16 – How do you know when a video is done?

56:18 – What is the best way to learn math for beginners?

59:17 – Happy moment