Ritson 2016 the Many Dimensions of the String Theory Wars.Pdf
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Emergence and Phenomenology in Quantum Gravity
Emergence and Phenomenology in Quantum Gravity by Isabeau Premont-Schwarz´ A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2010 © Isabeau Premont-Schwarz´ 2010 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT This thesis is based on the following five articles: • A. Hamma, F. Markopoulou, I. Pr´emont-Schwarz and S. Severini, “Lieb-Robinson bounds and the speed of light from topological order,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 102 (2009) 017204 [arXiv:0808.2495 [quant-ph]]. • I. Pr´emont-Schwarz ,A. Hamma, I. Klich and F. Markopoulou, “Lieb-Robinson bounds for commutator-bounded operators ,” Phys. Rev. A 81, 040102(R) (2010) .[arXiv:0912.4544 [quant-ph]]. • I. Pr´emont-Schwarz and J. Hnybida, “Lieb-Robinson bounds with dependence on interaction strengths, ” [arXiv:1002.4190 [math-ph]]. • L. Modesto and I. Pr´emont-Schwarz, “Self-dual Black Holes in LQG: Theory and Phenomenology,” Phys. Rev. D 80, 064041 (2009) [arXiv:0905.3170 [hep-th]]. • S. Hossenfelder, L. Modesto and I. Pr´emont-Schwarz, “A model for non-singular black hole collapse and evaporation ,” Phys. Rev. D 81, 044036 (2010) [arXiv:0912.1823 [gr-qc]]. I did the majority of the work in the first article, but the project was initiated by Fotini Markopoulou-Kalamara and Alioscia Hamma and the manuscript was mostly written by Alioscia Hamma. -
Not Even Wrong, Ten Years Later: a View from Mathematics on Prospects for Fundamental Physics Without Experiment
Not Even Wrong, ten years later: a view from mathematics on prospects for fundamental physics without experiment Peter Woit Columbia University Rutgers Physics Colloquium, February 3, 2016 Peter Woit (Columbia University) Not Even Wrong, ten years later: a view from mathematicsFebruary on prospects 3, 2016 for fundamental 1 / 32 physics without experiment Outline Some advertisements and some provocations: Advertisements: an old book, an ongoing blog, and a forthcoming book. Review what has happened to the idea of string theory unification. Raise the issue of what happens absent new experimental guidance. Can the example of mathematics help? Evidence for deep connections between math and physics: quantum mechanics and representation theory Speculation about relevance of ideas from representation theory to better understanding the Standard Model. Peter Woit (Columbia University) Not Even Wrong, ten years later: a view from mathematicsFebruary on prospects 3, 2016 for fundamental 2 / 32 physics without experiment An advertisment for three projects Not Even Wrong: the book Written largely in 2001-2 2003: under review at Cambridge University Press Fall 2004: accepted for publication by British publisher (with help from Roger Penrose) Mid-2006: published around same time as Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics. The \String Wars" kick off. Peter Woit (Columbia University) Not Even Wrong, ten years later: a view from mathematicsFebruary on prospects 3, 2016 for fundamental 3 / 32 physics without experiment An advertisment for three projects Not Even Wrong: the blog Started March 2004 In 2006, one of the battlefields of the string wars. Currently 1512 postings 41,335 comments Around 20,000 page-views/day (mostly robots...) http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog Peter Woit (Columbia University) Not Even Wrong, ten years later: a view from mathematicsFebruary on prospects 3, 2016 for fundamental 4 / 32 physics without experiment An advertisment for three projects An advertisement for the competition Finally in 2015, a book with the counter-argument I was expecting. -
Fcaglp, Unlp, 2018
Scientific Philosophy Gustavo E. Romero IAR-CONICET/UNLP, Argentina FCAGLP, UNLP, 2018 Epistemology Episteme, as distinguished from techne, is etymologically derived from the Ancient Greek word ἐπιστήμη for knowledge or science, which comes from the verb ἐπίσταμαι, "to know". In Plato's terminology episteme means knowledge, as in "justified true belief", in contrast to doxa, common belief or opinion. The word epistemology, meaning the study of knowledge, is derived from episteme. Plato Epistemology is the general study of cognitive processes and their outcome: knowledge. Knowledge is the product of cognitive operations made by an inquiring subject. It is not a thing or a substance, but a series of brain changes in the knower. Knowledge is not independent of the knowing subject, although we often feign it is for practical reasons. Knowledge is different from belief: I can know a story, for instance, but do not believe it. Belief implies a psychological adherence to some propositions. It is possible to believe something without understanding it, so belief is not necessary associated with neither truth nor justification. Knowledge acquisition requires a modification of the brain of the knower. This can be done in different ways, hence there are different kinds of knowledge. (i) Sensory-motor knowledge: the result of learning from actions. (ii) Perceptual knowledge: the result of perceiving events, either internal or external to the subject. (iii) Conceptual or propositional knowledge: the result of ideation, conjecturing, testing, correcting. Notice that not all knowledge is beneficial: we can learn trivialities, falsehoods, or highly harmful habits The three kind of knowledge are interrelated: conceptual knowledge can improve motor skills and perception; perception is used to evaluate conjectures; motor skills can help to improve perception and build instruments such as books, that enhance the ability to learn. -
Sabine Hossenfelder on “The Case Against Beauty in Physics” Julia
Rationally Speaking #211: Sabine Hossenfelder on “The case against beauty in physics” Julia: Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense. I'm your host, Julia Galef, and I'm here with today's guest, Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist, focusing on quantum gravity. She's a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and blogs at Back Reaction. She just published the book, "Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray." "Lost in Math” argues that physicists, in at least certain sub-fields, evaluate theories based heavily on aesthetics, like is this theory beautiful? Instead of simply, what does the evidence suggest is true? The book is full of interviews Sabine did with top physicists, where she tries to ask them: what's the justification for this? Why should we expect beauty to be a good guide to truth? And, spoiler alert, ultimately, she comes away rather unsatisfied with the answers. So, we're going to talk about "Lost in Math" and the case for and against beauty in physics. Sabine, welcome to the show. Sabine: Hello. Julia: So, probably best to start with: what do you mean by beauty, in this context? And is it closer to a kind of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” thing, like, every physicist has their own sort of aesthetic sense? Or is more like there's a consensus among physicists about what constitutes a beautiful theory? Sabine: Interestingly enough, there's mostly consensus about it. Let me put ahead that I will not try to tell anyone what beauty means, I am just trying to summarize what physicists seem to mean when they speak of beauty, when they say “that theory is beautiful.” There are several ingredients to this sense of beauty. -
Galaxy Cross-Corr
Astro2020 Science White Paper Synergies Between Galaxy Surveys and Reionization Measurements Thematic Areas: ☐ Planetary Systems ☐ Star and Planet Formation ☐Formation and Evolution of Compact Objects ☒ Cosmology and Fundamental Physics ☐Stars and Stellar Evolution ☐Resolved Stellar Populations and their Environments ☒Galaxy Evolution ☐Multi-Messenger Astronomy and Astrophysics Principal Author: Name: Steven Furlanetto Institution: University of California, Los Angeles Email: [email protected] Phone: (310) 206-4127 Co-authors: Adam Beardsley (Arizona State University), Chris L. Carilli (Cavendish Laboratory, NRAO), Jordan Mirocha (McGill University), James Aguirre (University of Pennsylvania), Yacine Ali- Haimoud (New York University), Marcelo Alvarez (University of California Berkeley), George Becker (University of California Riverside), Judd D. Bowman (Arizona State University), Patrick Breysse (CITA), Volker Bromm (University of Texas at Austin), Philip Bull (Queen Mary University of London), Jack Burns (University of Colorado Boulder), Isabella P. Carucci (University College London), Tzu-Ching Chang (JPL), Hsin Chiang (McGill University), Joanne Cohn (University of California Berkeley), Frederick Davies (University of California Santa Barbara), David DeBoer (University of California Berkeley), Mark Dickinson (NOAO), Joshua Dillon (University of California Berkeley), Olivier Doré (JPL, California Institute of Technology), Cora Dvorkin (Harvard University), Anastasia Fialkov (University of Sussex), Steven Finkelstein (University -
The Road to Afghanistan
Introduction Hundreds of books—memoirs, histories, fiction, poetry, chronicles of military units, and journalistic essays—have been written about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. If the topic has not yet been entirely exhausted, it certainly has been very well documented. But what led up to the invasion? How was the decision to bring troops into Afghanistan made? What was the basis for the decision? Who opposed the intervention and who had the final word? And what kind of mystical country is this that lures, with an almost maniacal insistence, the most powerful world states into its snares? In the nineteenth and early twentieth century it was the British, in the 1980s it was the Soviet Union, and now America and its allies continue the legacy. Impoverished and incredibly backward Afghanistan, strange as it may seem, is not just a normal country. Due to its strategically important location in the center of Asia, the mountainous country has long been in the sights of more than its immediate neighbors. But woe to anyone who arrives there with weapon in hand, hoping for an easy gain—the barefoot and illiterate Afghans consistently bury the hopes of the strange foreign soldiers who arrive along with battalions of tanks and strategic bombers. To understand Afghanistan is to see into your own future. To comprehend what happened there, what happens there continually, is to avoid great tragedy. One of the critical moments in the modern history of Afghanistan is the period from April 27, 1978, when the “April Revolution” took place in Kabul and the leftist People’s Democratic Party seized control of the country, until December 27, 1979, when Soviet special forces, obeying their “international duty,” eliminated the ruling leader and installed 1 another leader of the same party in his place. -
A Natural Introduction to Fine-Tuning
A Natural Introduction to Fine-Tuning Julian De Vuyst ∗ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Ghent University, Krijgslaan, S9, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Abstract A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this problem in general, giving some examples from physics. We will review some solutions like the design argument, logical probability, cosmological natural selection, etc. Moreover, we will also discuss why it's dangerous to uphold the Principle of Naturalness as a scientific principle. After going through this paper, the reader should have a general idea what this problem exactly entails whenever it is mentioned in other sources and we recommend the reader to think critically about these concepts. arXiv:2012.05617v1 [physics.hist-ph] 10 Dec 2020 ∗[email protected] 1 Contents 1 Introduction3 2 A Take on Constants3 2.I The Role of Units . .4 2.II Derived vs Fundamental Constants . .5 3 The Concept of Naturalness6 3.I Technical Naturalness . .6 3.I.a A Wilsonian Perspective . .6 3.I.b A Brief History . .8 3.II Numerical/General Naturalness . .9 4 The Fine-Tuning Problem9 5 Some Examples from Physics 10 5.I The Cosmological Constant Problem . 10 5.II The Flatness Problem . 11 5.III The Higgs Mass . 12 5.IV The Strong CP Problem . 13 6 Resolutions to Fine-Tuning 14 6.I We are here, full stop . 14 6.II Designed like Clockwork . -
Philosophical Reflections on Modern Quantum Gravity Research
Stringed along or caught in a loop? Stringed along or caught in a loop? Philosophical reflections on modern quantum gravity research Keizo Matsubara Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Geijersalen, Building 6, (Eng 6-1023), English Park Campus, Thunbergsvägen 3P, Uppsala, Friday, January 18, 2013 at 10:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Abstract Matsubara, K. 2013. Stringed along or caught in a loop?: Philosophical reflections on modern quantum gravity research. Filosofiska Institutionen. 139 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-506-2324-6. A number of philosophical questions, all connected to modern research in quantum gravity, are discussed in this dissertation. The goal of research in quantum gravity is to find a quantum theory for gravitation; the ot- her fundamental forces are already understood in terms of quantum physics. Quantum gravity is studied within a number of different research programmes. The most popular are string theory and loop quantum gravity; besides these a number of other approaches are pursued. Due to the lack of empirical support, it is relevant to assess the scientific status of this rese- arch. This is done from four different points of view, namely the ones held by: logical positi- vists, Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos. It is then argued that research in quantum gravity may be considered scientific, conditional on scientists being open with the tentative and speculative nature of their pursuits. Given the lack of empirical progress, in all approaches to quantum gravity, a pluralistic strategy is advised. In string theory there are different theoretical formulations, or dualities, which are physi- cally equivalent. -
Particle Theory: a View from a Neighboring Field
Particle theory: a view from a neighboring field Peter Woit Mathematics Department Columbia University Rochester Physics and Astronomy Colloquium March 7, 2018 Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaParticle University) theory: a view from a neighboring field March 7, 2018 1 / 31 Two cultures Physics 1979: B.A./M.A. in physics, Harvard 1984: Ph.D. in particle theory, Princeton 1984-87: Postdoc ITP Stony Brook Mathematics 1988: adjunct Calculus instructor, Tufts math department 1988-9: Postdoc, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley 1989-93: Asst. professor, Columbia math department (non-tenure track) 1993-current: Permanent non-tenured position at Columbia, now Senior Lecturer Neighboring fields, but very different language and culture. Remniscent of moving between US and France as a child (lived in Paris age 8-13). Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaParticle University) theory: a view from a neighboring field March 7, 2018 2 / 31 The SM: a victim of its own success The Standard Model, some history 1973: SU(3) x SU(2) X U(1) gauge theory of strong, weak and electromagnetic forces 1983: Discovery of W/Z bosons 1995: Discovery of the top quark 1998: Discovery of non-zero neutrino masses (an extension of the original SM) 2012: Discovery of the Higgs at the LHC Current situation All high energy accelerator experiments consistent with the SM. Ongoing experiments at the LHC at 13 TeV center of mass energy. Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaParticle University) theory: a view from a neighboring field March 7, 2018 -
The State of High-Energy Particle Physics: a View from a Neighboring field
The state of high-energy particle physics: a view from a neighboring field Peter Woit Mathematics Department Columbia University US Naval Observatory Colloquium December 6, 2018 Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaThe state University) of high-energy particle physics: a view from aDecember neighboring 6, field2018 1 / 27 Two cultures Physics 1979: B.A./M.A. in physics, Harvard 1984: Ph.D. in particle theory, Princeton 1984-87: Postdoc ITP Stony Brook Mathematics 1988: adjunct Calculus instructor, Tufts math department 1988-9: Postdoc, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley 1989-93: Asst. professor, Columbia math department (non-tenure track) 1993-current: Permanent non-tenured position at Columbia, now Senior Lecturer Neighboring fields, but very different language and culture. Remniscent of moving between US and France as a child (lived in Paris age 8-13). Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaThe state University) of high-energy particle physics: a view from aDecember neighboring 6, field2018 2 / 27 The SM: a victim of its own success The Standard Model, some history 1973: SU(3) x SU(2) X U(1) gauge theory of strong, weak and electromagnetic forces 1983: Discovery of W/Z bosons 1995: Discovery of the top quark 1998: Discovery of non-zero neutrino masses (an extension of the original SM) 2012: Discovery of the Higgs at the LHC Current situation All high energy accelerator experiments consistent with the SM. Ongoing experiments at the LHC at 13 TeV center of mass energy. Peter Woit (Mathematics Department ColumbiaThe -
Astro2020 Science White Paper Cosmology with the Highly Redshifted 21 Cm Line
Astro2020 Science White Paper Cosmology with the Highly Redshifted 21 cm Line Thematic Areas: Planetary Systems Star and Planet Formation Formation and Evolution of Compact Objects 3Cosmology and Fundamental Physics Stars and Stellar Evolution Resolved Stellar Populations and their Environments Galaxy Evolution Multi-Messenger Astronomy and Astrophysics Principal Author: Name: Adrian Liu Institution: McGill University Email: [email protected] Phone: (514) 716-0194 Co-authors: (names and institutions) James Aguirre (University of Pennsylvania), Joshua S. Dillon (UC Berkeley), Steven R. Furlanetto (UCLA), Chris Carilli (National Radio Astronomy Observatory), Yacine Ali-Haimoud (New York University), Marcelo Alvarez (University of California, Berkeley), Adam Beardsley (Arizona State University), George Becker (University of California, Riverside), Judd Bowman (Arizona State University), Patrick Breysse (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics), Volker Bromm (University of Texas at Austin), Philip Bull (Queen Mary University of London), Jack Burns (University of Colorado Boulder), Isabella P. Carucci (University College London), Tzu-Ching Chang (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Hsin Chiang (McGill University), Joanne Cohn (University of California, Berkeley), David DeBoer (University of California, Berkeley), Cora Dvorkin (Harvard University), Anastasia Fialkov (Sussex University), Nick Gnedin (Fermilab), Bryna Hazelton (University of Washington), Daniel Jacobs (Arizona State University), Marc Klein Wolt (Radboud University -
Blood, Water and Mars: Soviet Science and the Alchemy for a New Man
Central Washington University ScholarWorks@CWU All Master's Theses Master's Theses Spring 2019 Blood, Water and Mars: Soviet Science and the Alchemy for a New Man Sophie Y. Andarovna Central Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd Part of the European History Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Intellectual History Commons, and the Russian Literature Commons Recommended Citation Andarovna, Sophie Y., "Blood, Water and Mars: Soviet Science and the Alchemy for a New Man" (2019). All Master's Theses. 1201. https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/etd/1201 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses at ScholarWorks@CWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@CWU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLOOD, WATER AND MARS: SOVIET SCIENCE AND THE ALCHEMY FOR A NEW MAN __________________________________ A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty Central Washington University ___________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts History ___________________________________ by Sophie Yennan Andarovna May 2019 CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Graduate Studies We hereby approve the thesis of Sophie Yennan Andarovna Candidate for the degree of Master of Arts APPROVED FOR THE GRADUATE FACULTY ______________ _________________________________________ Dr. Roxanne Easley, Committee Chair ______________