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GUEST SPEAKER: Guess who
likes to live dangerously?

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That's right.

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Set theorists.

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Or, more generally,
mathematicians.

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To this day, we have no standard
definition of what they do.

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The 20th century
mathematician Bertrand Russell

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said that math is the
subject where we don't really

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know what we're doing
nor whether it is true.

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And actually, that's not
that much of an exaggeration.

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Mathematics is highly
ambiguous and mysterious still.

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Take, for example, the supported
and yet unanswered question--

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Is mathematics real?

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Is the arithmetic we learn
in elementary school true?

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We believe that it's
true, because, well, it's

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worked so well for us.

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But, as young logician
Kurt Godel proved,

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we can never know for sure.

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In short, math is messy.

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There's no way around that.

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So what exactly does
this mean for us?

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Why do set theorists
continue to live

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on the edge of this shaky
mathematical precipice?

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Could machines really
be smarter than humans?

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And could The Matrix
scenario really happen to us?

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Luckily, Godel answers
that and so much more.