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