Sunday, October 08, 2006
7 lectures for a revolution
This was an incredible colloquium, and it was an incredible weekend for physics.
Oddly enough, there have not been any mentions of it on the two most-widely-linked-to physics blogs... so I will explain what happened... over the next few days. There's too much to write in just one posting.
I had intended to blog from the conference, but since hotels charge for Internet access, I decided against it.
I think everyone was quite starstruck this weekend; I know I was. These lecturers are some of the biggest names in physics, in part because of their ability to clarify arcane subjects, but also because of their debates. And there certainly was QUITE A DEBATE last night.
Dr. Smolin's talk was by far the most astonishing of the seven. I'd expected it to be a diatribe of string theory. But even The Trouble with Physics wasn't much of a diatribe. In his lecture, he stated that he'd switched his focus in research from LQG to string theory and back... not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. He said LQG was practiced by "a few weirdos" like himself.
The most interesting (and funniest) part was when he showed a slide of successes and failures in theoretical physics. He had decided that most of the recent efforts in theoretical physics were failures, including... (be prepared for this) "my PhD thesis and the project after my PhD thesis."
What really shocked me was when he described all the other fringe theories his friends are working on. One was DSR, which I think stands for "double special relativity." One of the ideas in DSR is that spacetime can be quantized, which really isn't that new of an idea. But then... he described one theory that treats the universe as a superconductor.
It really makes string theory look good, doesn't it?
His lecture was excellent, though, and I told him that. He asked me what I was studying, so I told him physics, and I was shocked that he was happy about that. You wouldn't expect someone who wrote a book called The Trouble with Physics to want someone to go into physics. In fact, his autograph reads: "To Alexander, Best of Luck with Physics." He was very different in real life from the way the media (and many other physicists) have portrayed him.
I will discuss the other lectures in subsequent blogs. ¶ 9:45 PM
Oddly enough, there have not been any mentions of it on the two most-widely-linked-to physics blogs... so I will explain what happened... over the next few days. There's too much to write in just one posting.
I had intended to blog from the conference, but since hotels charge for Internet access, I decided against it.
I think everyone was quite starstruck this weekend; I know I was. These lecturers are some of the biggest names in physics, in part because of their ability to clarify arcane subjects, but also because of their debates. And there certainly was QUITE A DEBATE last night.
Dr. Smolin's talk was by far the most astonishing of the seven. I'd expected it to be a diatribe of string theory. But even The Trouble with Physics wasn't much of a diatribe. In his lecture, he stated that he'd switched his focus in research from LQG to string theory and back... not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. He said LQG was practiced by "a few weirdos" like himself.
The most interesting (and funniest) part was when he showed a slide of successes and failures in theoretical physics. He had decided that most of the recent efforts in theoretical physics were failures, including... (be prepared for this) "my PhD thesis and the project after my PhD thesis."
What really shocked me was when he described all the other fringe theories his friends are working on. One was DSR, which I think stands for "double special relativity." One of the ideas in DSR is that spacetime can be quantized, which really isn't that new of an idea. But then... he described one theory that treats the universe as a superconductor.
It really makes string theory look good, doesn't it?
His lecture was excellent, though, and I told him that. He asked me what I was studying, so I told him physics, and I was shocked that he was happy about that. You wouldn't expect someone who wrote a book called The Trouble with Physics to want someone to go into physics. In fact, his autograph reads: "To Alexander, Best of Luck with Physics." He was very different in real life from the way the media (and many other physicists) have portrayed him.
I will discuss the other lectures in subsequent blogs. ¶ 9:45 PM
