World's Scientists Pay Tribute to Stephen Hawking

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

World's Scientists Pay Tribute to Stephen Hawking IN FOCUS NEWS on his site frequently complained to senior a problem. Ideally, every entry on the list would Rick Anderson, an associate dean in the officials at his institution. state reasons for its inclusion, agrees the anony- library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake Last June, a scholarly-services firm called mous site manager. “I’m not sure if I will ever City, says that the scholarly community Cabell’s International in Beaumont, Texas, have time to do that myself,” they say. does need a good list of predatory publish- launched a pay-to-view blacklist of journals Berryman says that around 200 institutions ers (Anderson did paid consulting work for it deems ‘deceptive’, listing criteria for decid- have subscribed to Cabell’s blacklist since its Cabell’s when it was planning its blacklist). ing whether titles should be added. Kathleen launch. The list contains about 8,000 journals, But it should include clear criteria and justifi- Berryman, a project manager at the firm, says including some that aren’t open access. (The cations for inclusion, explanations for removed that a lack of clear explanations for why journals firm also maintains a whitelist; some journals entries and an appeal system, he says. “To do are on the anonymously maintained blacklists is aren’t on either list, Berryman says.) it well is going to be expensive and difficult.” ■ PEOPLE World’s scientists pay tribute to Stephen Hawking The physicist and science icon died at his home in Cambridge, UK, aged 76. BY DAVIDE CASTELVECCHI holes were not truly black. This emission, he reasoned, should tephen Hawking, one of the most ultimately lead a black hole to shrink and influential physicists of the twenti- disappear (S. W. Hawking Nature 248, eth century and perhaps the most 30–31; 1974). Even more shocking to TOM PILSTON/PANOS TOM Scelebrated icon of contemporary science, researchers was Hawking’s realization in died on 14 March at the age of 76. 1976 that Hawking radiation should erase Since his early twenties, Hawking had information from the Universe, in appar- lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ent contradiction to some of the basic (ALS), a disease in which motor neu- tenets of quantum theory (S. W. Hawking rons die, leaving the brain incapable Phys. Rev. D 14, 2460–2473; 1976). “The of controlling muscles. His health had importance of this work was not so much reportedly been deteriorating. the effect itself, but that he was able to pro- Hawking’s death was marked by vide the one clear-cut physical implication tributes from scientists worldwide. “The that we know of which brings together reaction among physicists is just profound the two great revolutions of twentieth- shock and sadness,” says Malcolm Perry, century physics, namely, general relativity a theoretical physicist at the University of and quantum mechanics,” says Penrose. Cambridge, UK, and a student of Hawk- Two years ago, together with Perry ing’s in the early 1970s. “He was a truly and Andrew Strominger at Harvard Uni- extraordinary man,” says Roger Penrose, versity in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a theoretical physicist at the University of Stephen Hawking, giant of cosmology, in 2013. Hawking began to sketch a possible way Oxford, UK, who in 1970 co-authored a out of the black-hole information para- seminal paper with Hawking on black holes. became one of the most recognized names in dox. The three of them, along with Strominger’s Another former student, theoretical contemporary science. His books, particularly student Sasha Haco, had been working on a physicist Raphael Bousso at the University of A Brief History of Time (1988), became block- follow-up paper, which Perry says is in its final California, Berkeley, told Nature that his teacher buster successes. He relished making cameo stages and will have Hawking’s name on it. was a brilliant physicist who also excelled at appearances on television shows such as Star Perhaps because most of his work was of a communicating science to the public. “Stephen Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. speculative nature and difficult to test, Hawk- was a joyful and light-hearted person, not to be Scientifically, his name is most closely associ- ing never won a Nobel prize. In 2016, some burdened by excessively respectful and convo- ated with the physics of black holes, which he wondered whether he might finally win one, luted interactions,” he says. began to study when they were considered mere when Jeff Steinhauer, a physicist at the Tech- The British physicist was born in Oxford in mathematical curiosities in Albert Einstein’s nion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, 1942. He was diagnosed with ALS when he was general theory of relativity. In the early 1970s, announced that he had found convincing evi- 21, while a doctoral student in cosmology at the he began to investigate what quantum physics dence of Hawking radiation — not in an actual University of Cambridge. Physicians gave him could reveal about the event horizon, a black black hole, but in a laboratory analogue made just a few years to live, but his disease advanced hole’s surface of no return. Hawking shocked of ultra-cold atoms. However, some experts more slowly than expected. He had an active the physics world when he calculated that this still consider those results inconclusive. career for decades, both as a theoretical physi- surface should slowly emit radiation (soon to A more direct test of some of Hawking’s cist and as a popularizer of science. Hawking become known as Hawking radiation). Black findings might yet come from the study of ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri gh22ts r eMARCHserved. 2018 | VOL 555 | NATURE | 423 NEWS IN FOCUS astrophysical black holes through gravita- from merging black holes, Hawking said that also explored cosmic inflation — a brief period tional waves, initiated by the US-based Laser he hoped future detections would be sensitive of rapid expansion in the first moments of the Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observa- enough to confirm a prediction he had made in Big Bang — and how it could spawn several tory (LIGO). Hawking and others have linked the 1970s: that the surface area of a post-merger universes, a ‘multiverse’. The pair set out to the surface area of a black hole’s event horizon to black hole should exceed the combined surface transform the idea of a multiverse into a test- its entropy, a measure of disorder. When inter- areas of the original objects that formed it. able scientific framework, says Hertog. “This viewed by Nature’s news team in 2016 about Together with cosmologist Thomas Hertog, was Hawking: to boldly go where Star Trek LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves another of his former students, Hawking had fears to tread.” ■ SEE OBITUARY P.444 PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY creatures. “It’s a one-two punch combining tectonic shifts and climate shifts,” says Rick Potts, who led the work as director of the human origins programme at the Smithsonian Surprise roots for Institution in Washington DC. “That’s the kind of stuff out of which evolution arises.” The studies push back the timeline for such behaviour by around 100,000 years, adding to human culture a growing body of evidence suggesting that the roots of human culture are deeper and more extensive than once thought. Technology developments linked to climate turbulence. The latest evidence is “probably not enough to put the question to rest as to what effect the BY JEFF TOLLEFSON simple hand axes in favour of smaller and more climate variability had on human behaviour”, advanced blades made from obsidian and other says Nick Blegen, an anthropologist at the arly humans in eastern Africa crafted materials obtained from distant sources. That Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human advanced tools and displayed other shift suggests the early people living there had History in Jena, Germany. But he says that the complex behaviours tens of thousands developed a trade network — evidence of grow- findings from Olorgesailie provide solid evi- Eof years earlier than previously thought, ing sophistication in behaviour. The research- dence for a shift towards sophisticated behav- according to a trio of papers published on ers also found gouges on black and red rocks iour that predates the earliest evidence for Homo 15 March in Science1–3. Those advances coin- and minerals, which indicate that early Olorge- sapiens. Researchers have traditionally thought cided with — and may have been driven by — sailie residents used those materials to create that H. sapiens emerged around 200,000 years major climate and landscape changes. pigments and possibly communicate ideas. ago, but fossils discovered in Morocco could The latest evidence comes from the push that date to more than 300,000 years ago4. Olorgesailie Basin in southern Kenya, where A TIME OF CHANGE Blagen has documented the transport of researchers have previously found traces of All of these changes in human behaviour obsidian in central Kenya roughly 200,000 years ancient relatives of modern human as far back occurred during an extended period of envi- ago5, and he is preparing another study that as 1.2 million years ago (see ‘Complex lives’). ronmental upheaval, punctuated by strong would push that record back to 396,000 years Evidence collected at sites in the basin sug- earthquakes and a shift towards a more vari- ago at the same site. The record for such com- gests that early humans underwent a series able and arid climate. These changes occurred plex behaviour is likely to extend back even of profound changes at some point before at the same time as larger animals disappeared further, he says, but it is not clear whether the roughly 320,000 years ago.
Recommended publications
  • A Quantum Focussing Conjecture Arxiv:1506.02669V1 [Hep-Th]
    Prepared for submission to JHEP A Quantum Focussing Conjecture Raphael Bousso,a;b Zachary Fisher,a;b Stefan Leichenauer,a;b and Aron C. Wallc aCenter for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A. bLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A. cInstitute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA Abstract: We propose a universal inequality that unifies the Bousso bound with the classical focussing theorem. Given a surface σ that need not lie on a horizon, we define a finite generalized entropy Sgen as the area of σ in Planck units, plus the von Neumann entropy of its exterior. Given a null congruence N orthogonal to σ, the rate of change of Sgen per unit area defines a quantum expansion. We conjecture that the quantum expansion cannot increase along N. This extends the notion of universal focussing to cases where quantum matter may violate the null energy condition. Integrating the conjecture yields a precise version of the Strominger-Thompson Quantum Bousso Bound. Applied to locally parallel light-rays, the conjecture implies a Quantum Null Energy Condition: a lower bound on the stress tensor in terms of the second derivative of the von Neumann entropy. We sketch a proof of this novel relation in quantum field theory. arXiv:1506.02669v1 [hep-th] 8 Jun 2015 Contents 1 Introduction2 2 Classical Focussing and Bousso Bound5 2.1 Classical Expansion5 2.2 Classical Focussing Theorem6 2.3 Bousso Bound7 3 Quantum Expansion and Focussing Conjecture8 3.1 Generalized Entropy
    [Show full text]
  • Chairman of the Opening Session
    The Universe had (probably) an origin: on singularity theorems & quantum fluctuations Emilio Elizalde ICE/CSIC & IEEC Campus UAB, Barcelona Cosmology and the Quantum Vacuum III, Benasque, Sep 4-10, 2016 Some facts (a few rather surprising...) • Adam Riess, NP 2011, at Starmus (Tenerife), about Hubble: • “Hubble obtained the distances and redshifts of distant nebulae…” • “Hubble discovered that the Universe was expanding…” • No mention to Vesto Slipher, an extraordinary astronomer • Brian Schmidt, NP 2011, at Starmus (Tenerife) & Lisa Randall, Harvard U, in Barcelona, about Einstein: SHOES- • “Einstein was the first to think about the possibility of a ‘dark energy’…” Supernovae • No mention to Fritz Zwicky, another extraordinary astronomer • Fritz Zwicky discovered dark matter in the early 1930s while studying how galaxies move within the Coma Cluster • He was also the first to postulate and use nebulae as gravitational lenses (1937) • How easily* brilliant astronomers get dismissed • How easily* scientific myths arise *in few decades How did the “Big Bang” get its name ? http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/universe/scientists/fred_hoyle • Sir Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) English astronomer noted primarily for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis (1946,54 groundbreaking papers) • Work on Britain's radar project with Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold • William Fowler NP’83: “The concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first established by Hoyle in 1946” • He found the idea universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, also arguments for a creator, “…for it's an irrational process, and can't be described in scientific terms”; “…belief in the first page of Genesis” • Hoyle-Gold-Bondi 1948 steady state theory, “creation or C-field” • BBC radio's Third Programme broadcast on 28 Mar 1949: “… for this to happen you would need such a Big Bang!” Thus: Big Bang = Impossible blow!! But now: Big Bang ≈ Inflation ! • Same underlying physics as in steady state theory, “creation or C-field” • Richard C.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is the Universe Made Of? How Old Is the Universe?
    What is the Universe made of? How old is it? Charles H. Lineweaver University of New South Wales ABSTRACT For the past 15 years most astronomers have assumed that 95% of the Universe was in some mysterious form of cold dark matter. They also assumed that the cosmo- logical constant, ΩΛ, was Einstein’s biggest blunder and could be ignored. However, recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background combined with other cos- mological observations strongly suggest that 75% of the Universe is made of cosmo- logical constant (vacuum energy), while only 20% is made of non-baryonic cold dark matter. Normal baryonic matter, the stuff most physicists study, makes up about 5% of the Universe. If these results are correct, an unknown 75% of the Universe has been identified. Estimates of the age of the Universe depend upon what it is made of. Thus, our new inventory gives us a new age for the Universe: 13.4 ± 1.6 Gyr. “The history of cosmology shows us that in every age devout people believe that they have at last discovered the true nature of the Universe.” (E. Harrison in Cosmology: The Science of the Universe 1981) 1 Progress A few decades ago cosmology was laughed at for being the only science with no data. Cosmology was theory-rich but data-poor. It attracted armchair enthusiasts spouting speculations without data to test them. It was the only science where the errors could be kept in the exponents – where you could set the speed of light c =1, not for dimensionless convenience, but because the observations were so poor that it didn’t matter.
    [Show full text]
  • Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research Communication Studies, Department of Spring 4-12-2011 Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement Brent Yergensen University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Yergensen, Brent, "Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement" (2011). Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research. 6. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communication Studies, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT by Brent Yergensen A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: Communication Studies Under the Supervision of Dr. Ronald Lee Lincoln, Nebraska April, 2011 ii SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT Brent Yergensen, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2011 Advisor: Ronald Lee String theory is argued by its proponents to be the Theory of Everything. It achieves this status in physics because it provides unification for contradictory laws of physics, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity. While based on advanced theoretical mathematics, its public discourse is growing in prevalence and its rhetorical power is leading to a scientific revolution, even among the public.
    [Show full text]
  • Tinkering with Time the NEW TIME TRAVELERS: a JOURNEY to the on Our FRONTIERS of PHYSICS by DAVID TOOMEY Bookshelf W
    BOOKS & ARTS Tinkering with time THE NEW TIME TRAVELERS: A JOURNEY TO THE On our FRONTIERS OF PHYSICS BY DAVID TOOMEY bookshelf W. W. Norton & Co.: 2007. 320 pp. $25.95 Years ago, David Toomey picked up H. G. Wells’ moving clocks tick slowly, making time travel The Time Machine and couldn’t put it down. to the future possible. We now know a number The Mathematics of He was most interested in the drawing-room of solutions to Einstein’s equations of general Egypt, Mesopotamia, discussion between the time traveller and his relativity (1915) that are sufficiently twisted to China, India, and Islam: friends in which time as a fourth dimension was allow time travel to the past: Kurt Gödel’s 1949 A Sourcebook discussed, but wanted to know more about just rotating universe; the Morris–Thorne–Yurtsever edited by Victor J. Katz how that time machine might work. Toomey was wormhole (1988); the Tipler–van Stockum infinite therefore delighted to learn that that drawing- rotating cylinder, moving cosmic strings (myself), Princeton Univ. Press: room conversation continues today — this time the rotating black-hole interior (Brandon Carter), 2007. 685 pp. $75 among physicists. a Roman ring of wormholes (Matt Visser), the We’re aware that Toomey captures well the personalities Everett–Alcubierre warp drive, my and Li–Xin Li’s the ancient cultures of the ‘new time travelers’ — those physicists self-creating universe; Amos Ori’s torus; and were mathematically interested in whether time travel to the past is others. The book discusses all of these. advanced. Now possible — from Stephen Hawking’s sense of But can a time machine really be constructed? translations of early texts humour to Kip Thorne’s penchant for placing Hawking, like one of the time traveller’s sceptical from five key regions are scientific bets.
    [Show full text]
  • ACCRETION INTO and EMISSION from BLACK HOLES Thesis By
    ACCRETION INTO AND EMISSION FROM BLACK HOLES Thesis by Don Nelson Page In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 1976 (Submitted May 20, 1976) -ii- ACKNOHLEDG:-IENTS For everything involved during my pursuit of a Ph. D. , I praise and thank my Lord Jesus Christ, in whom "all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1: 16-17) . But He is not only the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, including the physi­ cal laws which rule and their dominion the spacetime manifold and its matter fields ; He is also my personal Savior, who was "wounded for our transgressions , ... bruised for our iniquities, .. and the Lord has lald on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:5-6). As the Apostle Paul expressed it shortly after Isaiah ' s prophecy had come true at least five hundred years after being written, "God demonstrates His own love tmvard us , in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5 : 8) . Christ Himself said, " I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10) . Indeed Christ has given me life to the full while I have been at Caltech, and I wish to acknowledge some of the main blessings He has granted: First I thank my advisors , KipS.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title General Properties of Landscapes: Vacuum Structure, Dynamics and Statistics Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8392m6fc Author Zukowski, Claire Elizabeth Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California General Properties of Landscapes: Vacuum Structure, Dynamics and Statistics by Claire Elizabeth Zukowski A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Raphael Bousso, Chair Professor Lawrence J. Hall Professor David J. Aldous Summer 2015 General Properties of Landscapes: Vacuum Structure, Dynamics and Statistics Copyright 2015 by Claire Elizabeth Zukowski 1 Abstract General Properties of Landscapes: Vacuum Structure, Dynamics and Statistics by Claire Elizabeth Zukowski Doctor of Philosophy in Physics University of California, Berkeley Professor Raphael Bousso, Chair Even the simplest extra-dimensional theory, when compactified, can lead to a vast and complex landscape. To make progress, it is useful to focus on generic features of landscapes and compactifications. In this work we will explore universal features and consequences of (i) vacuum structure, (ii) dynamics resulting from symmetry breaking, and (iii) statistical predictions for low-energy parameters and observations. First, we focus on deriving general properties of the vacuum structure of a theory independent of the details of the geometry. We refine the procedure for performing compactifications by proposing a general gauge- invariant method to obtain the full set of Kaluza-Klein towers of fields for any internal geometry. Next, we study dynamics in a toy model for flux compactifications.
    [Show full text]
  • Back Cover Inside (Print)
    CONTENTS - Continued PHYSICAL REVIEW D THIRD SERIES, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 4 15 FEBRUARY 1998 Recycling universe . 2230 Jaume Garriga and Alexander Vilenkin Cosmological particle production and generalized thermodynamic equilibrium . 2245 Winfried Zimdahl Spherical curvature inhomogeneities in string cosmology . 2255 John D. Barrow and Kerstin E. Kunze Strong-coupling behavior of ␾4 theories and critical exponents . 2264 Hagen Kleinert Hamiltonian spacetime dynamics with a spherical null-dust shell . 2279 Jorma Louko, Bernard F. Whiting, and John L. Friedman Black hole boundary conditions and coordinate conditions . 2299 Douglas M. Eardley Ampli®cation of gravitational waves in radiation-dominated universes: Relic gravitons in models with matter creation . ..................................... 2305 D. M. Tavares and M. R. de Garcia Maia Evolution equations for gravitating ideal ¯uid bodies in general relativity . 2317 Helmut Friedrich Five-brane instantons and R2 couplings in Nϭ4 string theory . 2323 Jeffrey A. Harvey and Gregory Moore Exact gravitational threshold correction in the Ferrara-Harvey-Strominger-Vafa model . 2329 Jeffrey A. Harvey and Gregory Moore Effective theories of coupled classical and quantum variables from decoherent histories: A new approach to the back reaction problem . 2337 J. J. Halliwell Quantization of black holes in the Wheeler-DeWitt approach . 2349 Thorsten Brotz Trace-anomaly-induced effective action for 2D and 4D dilaton coupled scalars . 2363 Shin'ichi Nojiri and Sergei D. Odintsov Models for chronology selection . 2372 M. J. Cassidy and S. W. Hawking S-wave sector of type IIB supergravity on S1ϫT4 ................................................... 2381 Youngjai Kiem, Chang-Yeong Lee, and Dahl Park Kerr spinning particle, strings, and superparticle models . 2392 A. Burinskii Stuffed black holes .
    [Show full text]
  • Life at the Interface of Particle Physics and String Theory∗
    NIKHEF/2013-010 Life at the Interface of Particle Physics and String Theory∗ A N Schellekens Nikhef, 1098XG Amsterdam (The Netherlands) IMAPP, 6500 GL Nijmegen (The Netherlands) IFF-CSIC, 28006 Madrid (Spain) If the results of the first LHC run are not betraying us, many decades of particle physics are culminating in a complete and consistent theory for all non-gravitational physics: the Standard Model. But despite this monumental achievement there is a clear sense of disappointment: many questions remain unanswered. Remarkably, most unanswered questions could just be environmental, and disturbingly (to some) the existence of life may depend on that environment. Meanwhile there has been increasing evidence that the seemingly ideal candidate for answering these questions, String Theory, gives an answer few people initially expected: a huge \landscape" of possibilities, that can be realized in a multiverse and populated by eternal inflation. At the interface of \bottom- up" and \top-down" physics, a discussion of anthropic arguments becomes unavoidable. We review developments in this area, focusing especially on the last decade. CONTENTS 6. Free Field Theory Constructions 35 7. Early attempts at vacuum counting. 36 I. Introduction2 8. Meromorphic CFTs. 36 9. Gepner Models. 37 II. The Standard Model5 10. New Directions in Heterotic strings 38 11. Orientifolds and Intersecting Branes 39 III. Anthropic Landscapes 10 12. Decoupling Limits 41 A. What Can Be Varied? 11 G. Non-supersymmetric strings 42 B. The Anthropocentric Trap 12 H. The String Theory Landscape 42 1. Humans are irrelevant 12 1. Existence of de Sitter Vacua 43 2. Overdesign and Exaggerated Claims 12 2.
    [Show full text]
  • What's Inside
    Newsletter A publication of the Controlled Release Society Volume 33 • Number 1 • 2016 What’s Inside Modern Drug–Medical Device Combination Products Controlled Release of Levofloxacin from Vitamin E Loaded Silicone- Hydrogel Contact Lenses Encapsulation of Gold Nanoparticles to Visualize Intracellular Localization of Lipid and Polymer-Based Nanocarriers The One Health Initiative and Its Impact on Drug Development DDTR Update Chapter News Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting & Exposition July 17–20, 2016 Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. COLLABORATE CONNECT INNOVATE Registration Opens in March! Visit controlledreleasesociety.org for the latest details. Don’t miss out on the must-attend event in delivery science and technology! This is your opportunity to: • Learn about cutting-edge research and innovation • Meet esteemed industry experts, researchers, and young scientists • Build your network and collaborate controlledreleasesociety.org Newsletter Charles Frey Vol. 33 • No. 1 • 2016 Editor > TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 From the Editor 5 Preclinical Sciences & Animal Health The One Health Initiative and Its Impact on Drug Development Steven Giannos Editor 8 Special Feature Modern Drug-Medical Device Combination Products 10 Scientifically Speaking Controlled Release of Levofloxacin from Vitamin E Loaded Silicone-Hydrogel Contact Lenses 12 Scientifically Speaking Encapsulation of Gold Nanoparticles to Visualize Intracellular Arlene McDowell Localization of Lipid and Polymer-Based Nanocarriers Editor 15 CRS Foundation 2016 Allan Hoffman Student Travel Grant Program 16 Chapter News Drug Delivery Australia 18 Chapter News Rheology: How to Get into the Flow Bozena Michniak-Kohn 20 Chapter News Editor Micro- and Nanotechnologies to Overcome Biological Barriers: Eighth Annual CRS Italy Local Chapter Workshop 22 DDTR Update Drug Delivery and Translational Research Update 24 People in the News 25 Companies in the News Yvonne Perrie Editor Cover image: ©krugloff / Shutterstock.com Rod Walker Editor 3 > FROM THE EDITOR Editors Charles Frey Steven Giannos Roderick B.
    [Show full text]
  • Cosmological Singularity Resolution : Classical and Quantum Approaches
    Cosmological Singularity Resolution Classical and Quantum Approaches DISSERTATION zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades DOCTOR RERUM NATURALIUM (Dr. rer. nat.) im Fach Physik Spezialisierung: Theoretische Physik eingereicht an der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakult¨at der Humboldt-Universit¨atzu Berlin von Sebastian F. Bramberger Pr¨asidentin der Humboldt-Universit¨atzu Berlin: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. Sabine Kunst Dekan der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakult¨at: Prof. Dr. Elmar Kulke Tag der Disputation am 19.12.2019 Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Hermann Nicolai Prof. Dr. Claus Kiefer Dr. Olaf Hohm Abstract In the face of ever more precise experiments, the standard model of cosmology has proven to be tremendously robust over the past decades. Inflation or ekpyrosis provide a basis for solving some of its remaining conceptual issues - they are a beautiful and natural simplifi- cation to our understanding of the universe's early history; yet they leave many questions unanswered and raise new problems. For example, inflationary theories fail to be predictive as long as eternal inflation is not better understood. At the same time, ekpyrotic theories struggle to explain the transition from a contracting to an expanding phase - the so-called bounce. Both of them lack any understanding or description of the origin of everything and contain cosmological singularities. Here, we provide concrete steps towards shedding a light on these mysteries. The overarching theme that guides most chapters in this thesis is how to deal with cosmologi- cal singularities and whether they can be resolved without invoking extraordinary physics. In the first part, we construct classically non-singular bounces in the most general closed, homo- geneous but anisotropic space-time.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Trust a Theory? Some Further Remarks (Part 1)
    Why trust a theory? Some further remarks (part 1). Joseph Polchinski1 Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030 USA Abstract I expand on some ideas from my recent review \String theory to the rescue." I discuss my use of Bayesian reasoning. I argue that it can be useful but that it is very far from the central point of the discussion. I then review my own personal history with the multiverse. Finally I respond to some criticisms of string theory and the multiverse. Prepared for the meeting \Why Trust a Theory? Reconsidering Scientific Method- ology in Light of Modern Physics," Munich, Dec. 7-9, 2015. [email protected] Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 It's not about the Bayes. It's about the physics. 2 3 The multiverse and me 4 4 Some critics 9 4.1 George Ellis and Joseph Silk . .9 4.2 Peter Woit, and X . 10 1 Introduction The meeting \Why Trust a Theory? Reconsidering Scientific Methodology in Light of Mod- ern Physics," which took place at the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Dec. 7-9 2015, was for me a great opportunity to think in a broad way about where we stand in the search for a theory of fundamental physics. My thoughts are now posted at [1]. In this followup discussion I have two goals. The first is to expand on some of the ideas for the first talk, and also to emphasize some aspects of the discussion that I believe need more attention. As the only scientific representative of the multiverse at that meeting, a major goal for me was to explain why I believe with a fairly high degree of probability that this is the nature of our universe.
    [Show full text]