ICTP Distinguished Conversation: Edward Witten

Dirac Medallist Edward Witten, professor emeritus in the school of natural sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, is interviewed by ICTP Director Atish Dabholkar.

In this conversation they discuss the evolution of string theory over the years, as well as Witten’s contributions to the theory and his relationship with mathematics.

Edward Witten was awarded the Dirac Medal in 1985 – the year the award was launched – “for stimulating contributions to quantum field theory, particularly with regard to the implications of new kinds of anomalies”. He shared the award with Yakov Zeldovich (1914-1987).

The interview took place in June 2023, when Witten was at ICTP for the Huddle on Entanglement, Black Holes and Spacetime, during which he gave a public talk entitled “What every physicist should know about string theory”.





01:14 Connection between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity
03:06 First superstring revolution
05:02 First successes of string theory
06:46 Evolution of string theory and the strings revolutions
09:34 Duality
10:28 1995 Strings Conference
18:32 The scientific value of string theory
21:58 Edward Witten’s connections with ICTP
22:48 What brought Edward Witten to physics
23:28 ICTP’s mission to make knowledge globally available
24:28 Science cooperation and ICTP’s role in the SESAME project
26:00 Edward Witten’s contributions to mathematics and the “unreasonable effectiveness of physics to mathematics”
29:58 The problem with understanding pure gauge theories
32:54 Michael Atiyah’s influence on Witten
44:50 The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics on physics