Syllabus for Fall 2019
“The Character of Physical Law” Feynman describes how physicists think.
Tuesdays: 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM for 8 weeks (09/24/19 - 11/12/19)
Facilitator: John Anderson – [email protected] or phone 303-770-9360
Course Description: Has physics hit a brick wall? Nobel laureate Richard Feynman gave a series of seven public lectures in 1964 that describes how physicists approach problems and develop laws of nature. He used topics ranging from gravity to quantum mechanics. We will watch these lectures on video for an hour and then discuss what has happened in the intervening years in the second hour. The final week, we will watch gadfly theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s criticism of Feynman’s approach in our age of dark matter and dark energy searches at the Large Hadron Collider.
Things Feynman didn’t know which we’ll discuss:
• Quarks: protons and neutrons are made of these particles. • The Standard Model of Particle Physics was completed after Feynman’s talks. • The Higgs Particle was discovered at the LHC. It gives mass to particles. • Neutrinos have mass and oscillate between flavors. • CERN’s Proton Synchrotron was 28 GeV: today the LHC operates at 14 TeV. • The Cosmic Microwave Background was discovered only months before these talks. • Dark Matter appears to make up five times as much of the universe as ordinary matter. • Dark Energy is driving the universe apart. It is 70 percent of the universe. • General Relativity predicted gravity waves which have been detected. • We have imaged a black hole. • Universal expansion is accelerating. Discovered 1998. • Inflation is thought to be part of the Big Bang. • Is String Theory the way to unify gravity and quantum mechanics?
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Syllabus for Fall 2019
Course Schedule by Week:
Videos/Lectures Reading from Feynman’s Book Week 1, • Video - 1 Hour - “The Law of Gravitation, an example Chapter 1 and Introduction Tuesdays. of Physical Law” • Break September 24th • Discussion and update 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Week 2 • Video - 1 Hour - “The Relation of Mathematics to Chapter 2 Physics” October 1st • Break 1:00 to 3:00 PM • Discussion and update
Week 3 • Video - 1 Hour - “The Great Conservation Principles” Chapter 3 • Break th October 8 • Discussion and update 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Week 4 • Video - 1 Hour - “Symmetry in Physical Law” Chapter 4 • Break th October 15 • Discussion and update 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Week 5 • Video - 1 Hour - “The Distinction of Past and Future” Chapter 5 • Break th October 22 • Discussion and update 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Week 6 • Video - 1 Hour - “Probability and Uncertainty – the Chapter 6 Quantum Mechanical view of Nature” th October 29 • Break 1:00 to 3:00 PM • Discussion and update
Week 7 • Video - 1 Hour - “Seeking New Laws” Chapter 7 • Break th November 5 • Discussion and update 1:00 to 3:00 PM
Week 8 - Last • Video - 1 Hour - “Sabine Hossenfelder on 'How Beauty Sabine has a book: “Lost in Leads Physics Astray” at Santa Fe Institute Math – How Beauty Leads th November 12 • Break Physics Astray” 1:00 to 3:00 PM • Discussion – Should we build a $20 billion Future Circular Collider to replace the LHC
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Syllabus for Fall 2019
Biographical information for Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.
Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time.
He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and became known to a wide public in the 1980s as a member of the Rogers Commission, the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Along with his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing and introducing the concept of nanotechnology. He held the Richard C. Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.
Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics through both books and lectures including a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom and the three- volume publication of his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman also became known through his semi-autobiographical books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? and books written about him such as Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton and the biography Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick.
Biographical information for Sabine Hossenfelder
Born 18 September 1976, she is an author and theoretical physicist who researches quantum gravity. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group. She is the author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, which explores the concept of elegance in fundamental physics and cosmology.
Hossenfelder's research interest is in the phenomenology of quantum gravity. She focuses on the role of Lorentz invariance and locality, which would be altered in the discovery of quantum gravity. Hossenfelder is trying
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Syllabus for Fall 2019 to find experimental evidence of quantum gravity. Since 2007 she has been involved with the annual conference series "Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity". Hossenfelder has created a number of YouTube videos exploring the topic. She has been employed by the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies since 2015, where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group. Hossenfelder has also been researching since at least 2008 on how technology is changing researchers ability to publicize, discuss, or publish their research, when she co- organized the “Science in the 21st Century” workshop.
Books and Videos for Class (First book strongly recommended:)
• The Character of Physical Law – Richard Feynman, MIT Press, 1965, 2017, ISBN 9780262533416, Pages (173). The text and figures from the lecture videos.
• Feynman’s Messenger Lectures: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/tuva- richard- Feynman/?from=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fapps%2Ftools%2Ftuva% 2F#!1-physical-law
• Lost in Math – How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, Sabine Hossenfelder, Basic Books, 2018, ISBN 9780465094257. Math beauty is a matter of taste. It seemed to be a helpful assumption 50 years ago, but not so much now. Pages(292)
• Sabine’s talk in Santa Fe: https://www.santafe.edu/news-center/news/sfi-community- lecture-how-beauty-leads-physics-astray
I hope you enjoy the course.
Your course leader,
John Anderson
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