DOCSLIB.ORG

NOT EVEN WRONG Tells a Fascinating and Complex Story About Human

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
NOT EVEN WRONG Tells a Fascinating and Complex Story About Human NOT EVEN WRONG tells a fascinating and complex story about human beings and their attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle of all: how does the universe work at its most fundamental level? The story begins with an historical survey of the experimental and theoretical developments that led to the creation of the phenomenally successful 'Standard Model' of particle physics around 1975. But, despite its successes, the Standard Model left a number of key questions unanswered and physicists therefore continued in their attempt to find a powerful, all-encompassing theory. Now, more than twenty years after coming onto the scene, and despite a total lack of any success in going beyond the Standard Model, it is superstring theory that dominates particle physics. How this extraordinary situation has come about is a central concern of this book. As Peter Woit explains, the term 'superstring theory' really refers not to a well-defined theory, but to unrealised hopes that one might exist. As a result, this is a 'theory' that makes no predictions, not even wrong ones, and this very lack of falsifiability has allowed it not only to survive but to flourish. The absence of experimental evidence is at the core of this controversial situation in physics - a situation made worse by a refusal to challenge conventional thinking and an unwillingness to evaluate honestly the arguments both for and against string theory. To date, only the arguments of the theory's advocates have received much publicity. NOT EVEN WRONG will provide readers with another side of this story, allowing them to decide for themselves where the truths of the matter may lie and to follow an important and compelling story as it continues to unfold. \ NOT EVEN WRONG IS AN AUTHORITATIVE AND WELL REASONED ACCOUNT OF STRING THEORY'S EXTREMELY FASHIONABLE STATUS AMONG TODAY'S THEORETICAL PHYSICISTS. THE HOLD THAT STRING THEORY HAS, WORLD­ PETER WOIT is a physicist and mathematician. WIDE, ON TODAY'S CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH INTO THE FUNDAMENTAL He graduated in 1979 from Harvard University with LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE IS VERY REMARKABLE, CONSIDERING THE LACK OF bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and went ANY OBSERVATIONAL SUPPORT FOR THIS BODY OF IDEAS. WOIT SUPPLIES on to be awarded his PhD in theoretical physics from Princeton University. He was a postdoc at the Institute THE FIRST THOROUGH AND DETAILED ANALYSIS AIMED AT EXPLAINING THIS for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook and at the EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENON. I FOUND IT COMPULSIVE READING, AND Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley. I REGARD IT AS AN IMPORTANT BOOK.' He is now a lecturer in the mathematics department ROGER PENROSE, AUTHOR OF THE ROAD TO REALITY at Columbia University, New York, where he has been since 1989, recently teaching graduate courses in THIS IS A COURAGEOUS AND NECESSARY BOOK THAT SHOULD SPARK A quantum field theory, representation theory, and differential geometry. DEBATE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS.' LEE SMOLIN, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF THE COSMOS POPULAR SCIENCE' ISBN 0-224-07605-1 JONATHAN CAPE JACKET: AN ARTISTICALLY ENHANCED PICTURE OF RANDOM HOUSE PARTICLE TRACKS IN THE BEBC, BIG EUROPEAN BUBBLE CHAMBER. (COURTESY: CERN) 20 VAUXHALL BRIDGE ROAD 9 '7 8 0 2 2 4"0 760 50 I OMnOM SW1V 9<5A Not Even Wrong The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics Peter Woit JONATHAN CAPE LONDON Published by Jonathan Cape 2006 2468 10 9 75 3 1 Copyright © Peter Woit 2006 Peter Woit has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser First published in Great Britain in 2006 by JONATHAN CAPE Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA Random House Australia (Pty) Limited 20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney, New South Wales 2061, Australia Random House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited Isle of Houghton, Corner of Boundary Road & Carse O'Gowrie, Houghton 2198, South Africa The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009 www.randomhouse.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 9780224076050 (from January 2007) ISBN 0224076051 Papers used by Random House are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests; the manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Polmont, Stirlingshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by William Clowes Ltd, Beccles, Suffolk For Ellen Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 About this book 8 1. Particle Physics at the Turn of the Millennium 10 2. The Instruments of Production 14 Basic principles 14 Experimental particle physics, a quick history 18 Current accelerators 28 Accelerators: future prospects 31 Further reading 36 3. Quantum Theory 38 Quantum theory and its history 39 Further reading 56 4. Quantum Field Theory 58 Further reading 66 5. Gauge Symmetry and Gauge Theories 67 Further reading 74 6. The Standard Model 75 vii Not Even Wrong The standard model: electro-weak interactions 76 The standard model: strong interactions 83 Further reading 91 7. Triumph of the Standard Model 92 Further reading 97 8. Problems of the Standard Model 98 9. Beyond the Standard Model 102 Grand unified theories 102 Technicolour 104 Supersymmetry and supergravity 107 10. New Insights in Quantum Field Theory and Mathematics 113 Edward Witten 113 Instantons in Yang-Mills theory and in mathematics 116 Lattice gauge theory 120 Large N 122 Two-dimensional quantum field theories 124 Anomalies and quantum mechanical symmetry breaking 129 Topological quantum field theory 132 Further reading 145 11. String Theory: History 146 S-matrix theory 146 The first string theories 153 The first superstring theory revolution 156 The second superstring theory revolution 161 Recent trends 163 Further reading 166 12. String Theory and Supersymmetry: An Evaluation 167 Supersymmetry 168 Superstring theory 179 String theory, supersymmetry and mathematics 193 viii Contents 13. On Beauty and Difficulty 198 14. Is Superstring Theory Science? 208 15. The Bogdanov Affair 217 16. The Only Game in Town: The Power and the Glory of String Theory 224 17. The Landscape of String Theory 240 18. Other Points of View 250 19. Conclusion 258 Notes 268 Index 275 ix Acknowledgements y knowledge about the topics discussed in this book is the prod­ Muct of many years spent in both the mathematics and physics communities, and I've benefited over this time from conversations on these topics with a large number of mathematicians and physicists. By now this number is so large that I'm afraid I'm only able to remem­ ber and thank those who have been of help during the last few years while I've been writing this book and seeing it through to publication. Of important assistance have been string theorists and other string- friendly physicists who have been willing to share their expertise with me as part of discussions about string theory in various inter­ net venues. I've learned a great deal from these discussions, so even though many of them are not likely to be very happy with this book, their efforts have made it a much better one than would otherwise have been possible. For help of this kind, I'd like specifically to thank Aaron Bergman, Sean Carroll, Jacques Distler, Robert Helling, Clifford V. Johnson, Lubos Motl, Moshe Rozali and Urs Schreiber. During the past few years I've been grateful to the many people who have contacted me, sometimes anonymously, with expressions of support and enthusiasm, often together with an interesting story of one sort or another. Finding out that my concerns about the present state of particle theory are so widely shared has been an important incentive for the writing of this book. xi Not Even Wrong I'd also like to thank Roger Astley of Cambridge University Press, together with Jim Lepowsky and several anonymous referees. While publication by Cambridge ultimately didn't work out, going through the process there ultimately turned the original manuscript into a much better book. At a later stage, Binky Urban provided excellent advice about what should be done to make the book a success, much of which I fear I haven't taken. Professor Karl von Meyenn provided me with the reference indi­ cating that the attribution of the phrase 'Not Even Wrong' to Pauli is not as apocryphal as I had feared, together with useful comments about the context of the phrase and the influence of the Vienna Circle on Pauli's thinking. John Horgan has provided encouragement and advice, together with interesting discussion of his views on some of the topics treated here. Among friends and supporters who have listened to me go on far too long about string theory and some of the other subjects treated here, I'd like especially to thank Oisin McGuinness, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Orland and Eric Weinstein, as well as my Columbia colleagues Bob Friedman, John Morgan, D.H. Phong and Michael Thaddeus, whose interest and support have been invaluable. It has been an honour to have the opportunity to discuss in person or via e-mail some of the issues treated here with some truly great mathematicians and physicists, all of whom have provided helpful advice.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Inflation, Large Branes, and the Shape of Space
    Inflation, Large Branes, and the Shape of Space Brett McInnes National University of Singapore email: [email protected] ABSTRACT Linde has recently argued that compact flat or negatively curved spatial sections should, in many circumstances, be considered typical in Inflationary cosmologies. We suggest that the “large brane instability” of Seiberg and Witten eliminates the negative candidates in the context of string theory. That leaves the flat, compact, three-dimensional manifolds — Conway’s platycosms. We show that deep theorems of Schoen, Yau, Gromov and Lawson imply that, even in this case, Seiberg-Witten instability can be avoided only with difficulty. Using a specific cosmological model of the Maldacena-Maoz type, we explain how to do this, and we also show how the list of platycosmic candidates can be reduced to three. This leads to an extension of the basic idea: the conformal compactification of the entire Euclidean spacetime also has the topology of a flat, compact, four-dimensional space. arXiv:hep-th/0410115v2 19 Oct 2004 1. Nearly Flat or Really Flat? Linde has recently argued [1] that, at least in some circumstances, we should regard cosmological models with flat or negatively curved compact spatial sections as the norm from an Inflationary point of view. Here we wish to argue that cosmic holography, in the novel form proposed by Maldacena and Maoz [2], gives a deep new interpretation of this idea, and also sharpens it very considerably to exclude the negative case. This focuses our attention on cosmological models with flat, compact spatial sections. Current observations [3] show that the spatial sections of our Universe [as defined by observers for whom local isotropy obtains] are fairly close to being flat: the total density parameter Ω satisfies Ω = 1.02 0.02 at 95% confidence level, if we allow the imposition ± of a reasonable prior [4] on the Hubble parameter.
    [Show full text]
  • Anomalies, Dualities, and Topology of D = 6 N = 1 Superstring Vacua
    RU-96-16 NSF-ITP-96-21 CALT-68-2057 IASSNS-HEP-96/53 hep-th/9605184 Anomalies, Dualities, and Topology of D =6 N =1 Superstring Vacua Micha Berkooz,1 Robert G. Leigh,1 Joseph Polchinski,2 John H. Schwarz,3 Nathan Seiberg,1 and Edward Witten4 1Department of Physics, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08855-0849 2Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030 3California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 4Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540 Abstract We consider various aspects of compactifications of the Type I/heterotic Spin(32)/Z2 theory on K3. One family of such compactifications in- cludes the standard embedding of the spin connection in the gauge group, and is on the same moduli space as the compactification of arXiv:hep-th/9605184v1 25 May 1996 the heterotic E8 × E8 theory on K3 with instanton numbers (8,16). Another class, which includes an orbifold of the Type I theory re- cently constructed by Gimon and Polchinski and whose field theory limit involves some topological novelties, is on the moduli space of the heterotic E8 × E8 theory on K3 with instanton numbers (12,12). These connections between Spin(32)/Z2 and E8 × E8 models can be demonstrated by T duality, and permit a better understanding of non- perturbative gauge fields in the (12,12) model. In the transformation between Spin(32)/Z2 and E8 × E8 models, the strong/weak coupling duality of the (12,12) E8 × E8 model is mapped to T duality in the Type I theory. The gauge and gravitational anomalies in the Type I theory are canceled by an extension of the Green-Schwarz mechanism.
    [Show full text]
  • July 2007 (Volume 16, Number 7) Entire Issue
    July 2007 Volume 16, No. 7 www.aps.org/publications/apsnews APS NEWS Election Preview A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY • WWW.apS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/apSNEWS Pages 6-7 Executive Board Resolution Thanks US physics team trains for competition in Iran By Katherine McAlpine Legislators for Support of Science Twenty-four high school stu- The APS Executive Board bill authorizes nearly $60 billion dents comprising the US Phys- has passed a resolution thanking for various programs for FY 2008 ics Olympiad team vied for five House and Senate policy makers through FY 2011. The bill would places on the traveling team at for recently-passed legislation double the NSF budget over five the University of Maryland from that strengthens the science, math years and double the DOE Office May 22nd to June 1st. Those and engineering activities of our of Science budget over 10 years. chosen to travel will compete nation. The House of Representatives this month against teams from “Sustaining and improving the passed five separate authorization all over the world at Isfahan standard of living of American bills, which were then combined University of Technology in Is- citizens, achieving energy security into one bill, H.R. 2272, the 21st fahan, Iran. and environmental sustainability, Century Competitiveness Act of Over 3,100 US Physics Team providing the jobs of tomorrow 2007. The bill would put the NSF hopefuls took the preliminary and defending our nation against budget and the NIST Scientific examination in January, and 200 aggressors all require federal in- and Technical Research and Ser- were given a second exam in vestments in science education vices budget on track to double in March to determine the top 24 and research… The Board con- 10 years.
    [Show full text]
  • David Olive: His Life and Work
    David Olive his life and work Edward Corrigan Department of Mathematics, University of York, YO10 5DD, UK Peter Goddard Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA St John's College, Cambridge, CB2 1TP, UK Abstract David Olive, who died in Barton, Cambridgeshire, on 7 November 2012, aged 75, was a theoretical physicist who made seminal contributions to the development of string theory and to our understanding of the structure of quantum field theory. In early work on S-matrix theory, he helped to provide the conceptual framework within which string theory was initially formulated. His work, with Gliozzi and Scherk, on supersymmetry in string theory made possible the whole idea of superstrings, now understood as the natural framework for string theory. Olive's pioneering insights about the duality between electric and magnetic objects in gauge theories were way ahead of their time; it took two decades before his bold and courageous duality conjectures began to be understood. Although somewhat quiet and reserved, he took delight in the company of others, generously sharing his emerging understanding of new ideas with students and colleagues. He was widely influential, not only through the depth and vision of his original work, but also because the clarity, simplicity and elegance of his expositions of new and difficult ideas and theories provided routes into emerging areas of research, both for students and for the theoretical physics community more generally. arXiv:2009.05849v1 [physics.hist-ph] 12 Sep 2020 [A version of section I Biography is to be published in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.] I Biography Childhood David Olive was born on 16 April, 1937, somewhat prematurely, in a nursing home in Staines, near the family home in Scotts Avenue, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • The Struggle for Quantum Theory 47 5.1Aliensignals
    Fundamental Forces of Nature The Story of Gauge Fields This page intentionally left blank Fundamental Forces of Nature The Story of Gauge Fields Kerson Huang Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA World Scientific N E W J E R S E Y • L O N D O N • S I N G A P O R E • B E I J I N G • S H A N G H A I • H O N G K O N G • TA I P E I • C H E N N A I Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF NATURE The Story of Gauge Fields Copyright © 2007 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. ISBN-13 978-981-270-644-7 ISBN-10 981-270-644-5 ISBN-13 978-981-270-645-4 (pbk) ISBN-10 981-270-645-3 (pbk) Printed in Singapore.
    [Show full text]
  • Fundamental Theorems in Mathematics
    SOME FUNDAMENTAL THEOREMS IN MATHEMATICS OLIVER KNILL Abstract. An expository hitchhikers guide to some theorems in mathematics. Criteria for the current list of 243 theorems are whether the result can be formulated elegantly, whether it is beautiful or useful and whether it could serve as a guide [6] without leading to panic. The order is not a ranking but ordered along a time-line when things were writ- ten down. Since [556] stated “a mathematical theorem only becomes beautiful if presented as a crown jewel within a context" we try sometimes to give some context. Of course, any such list of theorems is a matter of personal preferences, taste and limitations. The num- ber of theorems is arbitrary, the initial obvious goal was 42 but that number got eventually surpassed as it is hard to stop, once started. As a compensation, there are 42 “tweetable" theorems with included proofs. More comments on the choice of the theorems is included in an epilogue. For literature on general mathematics, see [193, 189, 29, 235, 254, 619, 412, 138], for history [217, 625, 376, 73, 46, 208, 379, 365, 690, 113, 618, 79, 259, 341], for popular, beautiful or elegant things [12, 529, 201, 182, 17, 672, 673, 44, 204, 190, 245, 446, 616, 303, 201, 2, 127, 146, 128, 502, 261, 172]. For comprehensive overviews in large parts of math- ematics, [74, 165, 166, 51, 593] or predictions on developments [47]. For reflections about mathematics in general [145, 455, 45, 306, 439, 99, 561]. Encyclopedic source examples are [188, 705, 670, 102, 192, 152, 221, 191, 111, 635].
    [Show full text]
  • Andrew Neitzke
    Address: Department of Mathematics Andrew Neitzke University of Texas at Austin 1 University Station, C1200 Curriculum Vitae Austin, TX 78712, USA Email: [email protected] January 2019 WWW: www.ma.utexas.edu/users/neitzke PGP key at: www.ma.utexas.edu/users/neitzke/pubkey.asc Education 2005 Harvard University: Ph.D. in Physics. Advisor: Cumrun Vafa. 1999 Cambridge University: Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics. 1998 Princeton University: AB Degree in Mathematics. Employment 2015{present University of Texas at Austin, Department of Mathematics: Associate professor. 2009{2015 University of Texas at Austin, Department of Mathematics: Assistant professor. 2008{2009 Harvard University, Department of Physics: Postdoctoral researcher. 2005{2008 Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, School of Natural Sciences: Member. Awards and grants 2018 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2019 class). 2017 National Science Foundation grant 1711692 (DMS). 2016 Simons Fellowship in Mathematics. 2012 National Science Foundation CAREER grant 1151693 (DMS). 2012 Co-PI on National Science Foundation FRG grant 1160461 (DMS). 2012 John R. Durbin Teaching Excellence Award in Mathematics, UT Austin. 2010 National Science Foundation grant 1006046 (DMS). 2000 NDSEG Graduate Fellowship. 1998 British Marshall Scholarship. 1998 Valedictorian, Princeton University, Class of 1998. Invited talks since 2011 Multi-lecture series are listed in bold. 2018 Perimeter (Higher Algebra in Mathematical Physics). 2018 Sendai (String-Math 2018). 2018 CIRM, Marseilles (Vector Bundles over Algebraic Curves). 2018 Michigan State University (Cluster Algebras and Mathematical Physics). 2018 G¨ottingen(Gauge theory and Geometry): Four lectures. 2018 University of Maryland (math seminar). 2017 Yale (math department colloquium). 2017 Rice (math department colloquium).
    [Show full text]
  • (A) Ds Backgrounds from Asymmetric Orientifolds
    hep-th/0106209 SLAC-PUB-8869 NSF-ITP-01- (A)dS Backgrounds from Asymmetric Orientifolds Eva Silverstein Department of Physics and SLAC, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305/94309 Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 I present asymmetric orientifold models which, with the addition of RR fluxes, fix all the NS NS moduli including the dilaton. In critical string theory, this gives new AdS backgrounds with (discretely tunably) weak string coupling. Extrapolating to super- critical string theory, this construction leads to a promising candidate for a metastable de Sitter background with string coupling of order 1/10 and dS radius of order 100 times the string scale. Extrapolating further to larger and larger super-critical dimension suggests the possibility of finding de Sitter backgrounds with weaker and weaker string coupling. arXiv:hep-th/0106209v1 22 Jun 2001 This note is an updated version of the last part of my Strings 2001 talk. June 2001 1. Introduction Because of bounds on Brans-Dicke forces and on time-dependence of couplings, it is of interest to fix the moduli in string/M theory. The diverse ingredients arising in modern string backgrounds, including branes and RR fields, introduce new sources of moduli as well as new forces which can help stabilize the moduli. In 2 I will present a six-dimensional model where the NS-NS moduli (including the § dilaton) are fixed, so that there are no runaway directions in moduli space. The strategy, as outlined in the last few minutes of my Strings 2001 talk, is to balance the first few terms in string perturbation theory off of each other by introducing large flux quanta and/or brane charges, in such a way that a minimum arises in the effective potential in a controlled regime at weak string coupling.
    [Show full text]
  • Shamit Kachru Professor of Physics and Director, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
    Shamit Kachru Professor of Physics and Director, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics CONTACT INFORMATION • Administrative Contact Dan Moreau Email [email protected] Bio BIO Starting fall of 2021, I am winding down a term as chair of physics and then taking an extended sabbatical/leave. My focus during this period will be on updating my background and competence in rapidly growing new areas of interest including machine learning and its application to problems involving large datasets. My recent research interests have included mathematical and computational studies of evolutionary dynamics; field theoretic condensed matter physics, including study of non-Fermi liquids and fracton phases; and mathematical aspects of string theory. I would characterize my research programs in these three areas as being in the fledgling stage, relatively recently established, and well developed, respectively. It is hard to know what the future holds, but you can get some idea of the kinds of things I work on by looking at my past. Highlights of my past research include: - The discovery of string dualities with 4d N=2 supersymmetry, and their use to find exact solutions of gauge theories (with Cumrun Vafa) - The construction of the first examples of AdS/CFT duality with reduced supersymmetry (with Eva Silverstein) - Foundational papers on string compactification in the presence of background fluxes (with Steve Giddings and Joe Polchinski) - Basic models of cosmic acceleration in string theory (with Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde, and Sandip Trivedi)
    [Show full text]
  • BIRS 2010 Scientific Report
    Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery 2010 Scientific Report 5-Day Workshops 2010 Jan 10 Jan 15 Mathematics and Physics of Polymer Entanglement Jan 17 Jan 22 Multi-Scale Stochastic Modeling of Cell Dynamics Jan 24 Jan 29 Sparse Random Structures: Analysis and Computation Jan 31 Feb 5 Theory and Applications of Matrices Described by Patterns Jan 31 Feb 5 Branching Random Walks and Searching in Trees Feb 7 Feb 12 Small-scale Hydrodynamics: Microfluidics and Thin Films Feb 14 Feb 19 Convex Algebraic Geometry Feb 21 Feb 26 Some Mathematical Problems of Material Science Feb 28 Mar 5 Randomization, Relaxation and Complexity Mar 7 Mar 12 Quasi-Isometric Rigidity in Low-Dimensional Topology Mar 7 Mar 12 (0,2) Mirror Symmetry and Heterotic Gromov-Witten Invariants Mar 14 Mar 19 Geometric Scattering Theory and Applications Mar 21 Mar 26 Deterministic and Stochastic Front Propagation Mar 28 Apr 2 Volume Inequalities Apr 4 Apr 9 Coordinated Mathematical Modeling of Internal Waves Apr 11 Apr 16 Generalized Complex and Holomorphic Poisson Geometry Apr 18 Apr 23 Optimal Transportation and Applications Apr 25 Apr 30 Character Varieties in the Geometry and Topology of Low-Dimensional Manifolds May 2 May 7 Functional Data Analysis: Future Directions May 2 May 7 Creative Writing in Mathematics and Science May 9 May 14 Nonlinear Diffusions and Entropy Dissipation: From Geometry to Biology May 16 May 21 Inverse Transport Theory and Tomography May 23 May 28 Self-assembly of Block Copolymers: Theoretical Models and Mathematical
    [Show full text]