Interview with Marc Levine

Marc Levine is a professor at Duisburg-Essen University, working in algebraic geometry and motivic homotopy theory, and my PhD advisor! In this interview, Marc contemplates how to look for research problems, learn new research areas and move from USA to Germany with your family. Marc's webpage: https://www.esaga.uni-due.de/marc.levine/ Photo: Marc's private photo collection 0:00​ teaser 0:48​ becoming a mathematician 2:51​ family’s reaction 4:48​ moving from USA to Germany 6:55​ bilingualism and jokes 10:40​ skills for doing research 14:15​ encouraging to stay in academia 17:06​ PhD advising 18:55​ what is work 20:20​ mysterious time-management 23:00​ not being judgmental 25:08​ geometric intuition 27:55​ thinking too fast 29:03​ challenge of moving forward 32:24​ finding math problems 35:26​ independence after graduation 38:21​ serious research mistakes 43:09​ how to learn motivic homotopy theory 45:45​ learning math backwards 47:28​ changes in the math community 51:31​ mathematical inspiration 53:21​ funny conference encounter 55:12​ my gratitude and R. Kipling 59:13​ advice to young mathematicians