Showing posts with label String Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label String Theory. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Quark Soup: Applied Superstring Theory

Author(s)
Alex Buche-University of Western Ontario / Perimeter Institute
Robert Myers-Perimeter Institute
Aninda Sinha-Perimeter Institute

It is believed that in the first few microseconds after the Big Bang, our universe was dominated by a strongly interacting phase of nuclear matter at extreme temperatures. An impressive experimental program at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island has been studying the properties of this nuclear plasma with some rather surprising results. We outline how there may be a deep connection between extra-dimensional gravity of String Theory and the fundamental theories of subatomic particles can solve the mystery of the near-ideal fluid properties of the strongly coupled nuclear plasma.

See Also:

Canadian Association of Physicists

***
Part of the understanding of the research goes back to the beginning of this QGP endeavor that brings us to today's level of understanding  enhanced by phenomenological positions now that allows us to move forward in our predictions and speculations. 

The Phenix


PHENIX, the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment, is an exploratory experiment for the investigation of high energy collisions of heavy ions and protons. PHENIX is designed specifically to measure direct probes of the collisions such as electrons, muons, and photons. The primary goal of PHENIX is to discover and study a new state of matter called the Quark-Gluon Plasma.




Back in 2005, what is it we saw and what we building along the way experimentally had constraints which lead our birdseye view of the process  as if from a distance looking toward the specifics of collision processes,  allowed us to be taken ever closer to the beginnings of the universe in expression.

***
In summary, experiments at RHIC have shown that a very dense QCD medium is formed in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Other measurements, namely elliptic flow and baryon-to-meson ratios, indicate that this medium is characterized by partonic degrees offreedom and that its expansion and cooling is well described by hydrodynamical models with high viscosity. Thus, this medium is more similar to a liquid than to a gas of gluons and quarks.Review on Heavy-Ion Physics

Friday, January 21, 2011

String Theory and the Real World



To be sure, the majority of research into string theory is not focused on how the theory connects to the real world; rather, most physicists are exploring questions at a more theoretical level. Such formal work is necessary, because as noted above, we need a deeper understanding to fully formulate the theory. Even the many theorists who are interested in how string theory connects to the real world don’t typically think much about what it means to test the theory. Fortunately, an increasingly active group of “string phenomenologists” are focusing on formulating a string-based description of the world and testing that understanding. They are already making testable predictions, and will increasingly do so.String Theory and the Real World by Gordon Kane

I am one of those laymen besieged by the possibilities of wrong assumptions, even though I have been following this subject for many years now.

So,  given the understanding that this could be the case of course one should defer to the article in question, so as to get it from the mouth of an expert, then, to settle on not what I believe, as I have witnessed  many believed,  following the crowd of "so and so,"  as to having been undermined by a rhetoric that did String Theory little justice to the views that it would bestowed upon the world from that theoretical position.



I mean in regards to "that point" though,  isn't it that if you can see the issues in a different light,  it harbors the potential to seeing the whole subject of the science in a way that would  forge new pathways in neurological development that few had traveled and nurtured. So yes,  setting the framework does this by illuminating corners of thought, not had been given those freedoms to roam, is based on a foundation and supported thinking from that a theoretical position.

Orientation of Perspective

So yes you have to look at this according to the way in which one might approach using string theory as a "point of view" such as emergence arising in the matter of perspectives, as a final result to it's meaning? So, if you see me deluded, then how much more so of you, if such conclusion as a derivative of your thinking, is based on "consensus alone from a crowd speaking" and not from a perspective of such orientation, that one's spouting such ills toward, could have amount to a superficial excursionist comment without any meaning at all.

So it is the effort on my part, and has always been,  to see if such perspective could be engaged by  a perspective that could take me to a point of origins, that such thoughts are so as to see it's explanation  laid out in the image above. Not just of a point in space, as a part of a flowery representation of that point, but of one that can contain the potentials as a description of the world according to deep immersion of thinking and probing of that point.

So the cosmological expression is wrapped not only in the cosmological view of the universe,  but of the nature of the expression of the energy that manifests as particulate expressions of that energy. The entropic realization of a final state of expression about which such matters are inherent definitions of the way things are in our world.

Commonality of Expression

So comparative understanding of such theoretical development needs not only to be seen in the light of "high energy considerations" as  has been explained by Gordon Kane,  but for the phenomenological approach to determinations,  as expression of such abstract thought as having a place in the real world of matter defined things.

You write your mathematical descriptions of the world and see them in relation too? Why not use this perspective about the "expression of things"  projected toward as a evolution of things from "inside ourselves," as breaking the barrier of subtle expressions as finite things( our actions)?

That is it's potential you see,  "a point about which,"  I have reiterated over and over again about the possibilities as potentials as a standard in measure,  rigorous in it's implications,  and repeatable in it's determination as "recognizable in our actions" as such commonality of expression.  Demonstrative of approach,  toward the science of things.

See Also: Gordon Kane, string theory, and the real world

Monday, December 27, 2010

Measure and Half Measures

Pythagoras, the man in the center with the book, teaching music, in The School of Athens by Raphael
Most of  you will recognize the partial image of the much larger I have used as the heading of this blog.


The Greek Pythagoras, for instance, was able to use abstract but simple mathematics to describe a natural phenomenon very precisely. He discovered the fractions that govern the harmonious musical notes. For example, a stretched string on a violin that produces a C note when you strike it, will give a C an octave higher when you divide its length by two. (Similarly, when we cut of a quarter of the length of the original string, the new string will sound like an E note) This is a famous early example of the use of mathematics to describe a physical phenomenon accurately. Pythagoras used the mathematics of fractions to describe the frequency of musical notes. In the ages that followed, of Galilei, Kepler, Newton and Einstein, mathematics became the prime language to depict nature. The mathematics of numbers, sets, functions, surfaces et cetera turned out to be the most useful tool for those people that felt the urge to understand the laws governing nature. See: Beyond String Theory-Introduction-Natural Language

However esoteric the following may seem to you, I was always enchanted with the idea of sound  as a manifestation of the world we live in, or, as color,  as a meaningful expression of the nature of the world we live in. Not really the artist of sound and color, but much more the artist in conceptual makings of the relation of the world with such ideas, hence, the idea of "Color of gravity."

Hence my interest in gravity, and what we as human beings can gather around our selves, in the ever quest for understanding the consequences of our causal relations to the events that follow us in the making of the reality we live.

The future consequences of probabilistic outcomes according to those positions adopted....can we say indeed that we are predictors of our futures and that at some level this predictability is a far reaching effect of understanding our choices and positions in life? We know this deep down within ourselves, "so as we think" we may become some "ball bouncing on the ocean of life?" Emotive consequences, without recourse to our choosing to excel from the primitive natures of our being in the moment?



Major scale

In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octavesolfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, (Do)", the "Do" in the parenthesis at the end being the octave of the root. The simplest major scale to write or play on the piano is C major, the only major scale not to require sharps or flats, using only the white keys on the piano keyboard:

Could we every conceive of the human being as being one full Octave? I thought so as I read, and such comparisons however esoterically contrived by association I found examples to such "predictable outcomes" as ever wanting to be "divined by principle by such choices we can make."  However unassociated these connections may seem.

I mean,  if one was a student of esoteric traditions and philosophies, it might have been "as traveling through a span and phase of one's life time"  leads us to the issues where we sit,  where we are at,  in the presences of the sciences today. We demanded accountability of ourselves in  that presence within the world as to being responsible and true to ourselves on this quest for understanding.

So if I had ever given the comment as to some iconic symbol as the Seal of Solomon, not just on the context of any secular religion as ownership, it is with the idea that representation could have enshrine the relationship between what exists as a "trinity of the above"  with that of "the below,"  when we are centered as to choice being the position with that of the heart.

See also:New Synesthete Character on Heroes


It was with this understanding that the full Octave could be entranced as too, resonances in the human being, that we could be raised and raise ourselves from such a position, so as to be freed from our emotive and ancient predicaments arising from evolutionary states of beings of the past.




***



Monochord is a one-stringed instrument with movable bridges, used for measuring intervals. The first monochord is attributed to Pythagoras. 

The story is told that Pythagoras wished to invent an instrument to help the ear measure sounds the same way as a ruler or compass helps the eye to measure space or a scale to measure weights. As he was thinking these thoughts, he passed by a blacksmith's shop. By a happy chance, he heard the iron hammers striking the anvil. The sounds he heard were all consonant to each other, in all combinations but one. He heard three concords, the diaspason (octave), the diapente (fifth), and the diatessaron (fourth). But between the diatessaron (fourth) and the diapente (fifth), he found a discord (second). This interval he found useful to make up the diapason (octave). Believing this happy discovery came to him from God, he hastened into the shop and, by experimenting a bit, found that the difference in sounds were determined by the weight of the hammers and not the force of the blows. He then took the weight of the hammers and went straight home. When he arrived home, he tied strings from the beams of his room. After that, he proceeded to hang weights from the strings equal to the weights he found in the smithy's shop. Setting the strings into vibration, he discovered the intervals of the octave, fifth and fourth. He then transferred that idea into an instrument with pegs, a string and bridges. The monochord was the very instrument he had dreamed of inventing.
See: String Instruments including Oud, Folk Fiddle, and Monochord, dan bau, from Carousel Publications Ltd

***
So what is the theory, then?
Pythagoras could be called the first known string theorist. Pythagoras, an excellent lyre player, figured out the first known string physics -- the harmonic relationship. Pythagoras realized that vibrating Lyre strings of equal tensions but different lengths would produce harmonious notesratio of the lengths of the two strings were a whole number. (i.e. middle C and high C) if the

   Pythagoras discovered this by looking and listening. Today that information is more precisely encoded into mathematics, namely the wave equation for a string with a tension T and a mass per unit length m. If the string is described in coordinates as in the drawing below, where x is the distance along the string and y is the height of the string, as the string oscillates in time t, 


See: Official String Theory Web Site

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Presenting a New Theoretical Position

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney


Here's the thing that I would caution such a quote, that any work can produce results, but, if we leave life unattended, the future is already written. The artist in you is very capable, and if you thought this aspect of yourself could msilead you, think twice, for the story telling can produce wonderful results and in such abstraction, it draws a conclusion for you.

What enters this room of the mind came from outside the box, and what constitutes this frame of reference is a room you will create. This creation is a subtle part of identification when you assess yourself and are given the warnings as to what shall become in the possibilities if not adjusted or taken care of. This pre-ordination does not imply you are without freewill, but on the contrary, are part and parcel of the greater wholeness defined in the universe. Defined within context of the understanding of ones own capability.

This has to be introduced in our assessment as to the nature of this universe.

JONATHAN SAUNDERS FOR TIMEEdward Witten:The World In A String-Time Magazine

Witten once called string theory "a bit of 21st century physics that somehow dropped into the 20th century." If so, Witten clearly has the 21st century mind to handle it.


There is no doubt, an historical significance to the topic under the heading of theoretics, and what calculable information retention would then lead you beyond the borders of reason, to know it is an attempt to go farther then we had ever gone before. How many combinations of the maths and you soon learn of the complexity of the situation.

But remember now, how "a thinking process" had been moved from the 21st Century.:)

The Decomposable limits of the Definition Conceptually Introduced.

While such reference to the subjective analysis of the current ministrations given by Sean Carroll on the article in the current Scientific Magazine, on the current state of the universe, it is with such presentation that I also included "the subjective side of my own nature," regardless of the warning about doing the physics first, and have one lead to such conclusions. It seems a difficult way in which to send the mind into the future, and while there, bring back the current state of the universe for a proper view of it's own continued existence.

Do you remember the theoretics of the 21 Century? So we now see that I include a facet of our mind that takes a leap, and while in it's most reflective state, while it rests, all that information manifests in a new possibility? From whence this come, and from which "directional face of the box" in it six dimensional rotational possibility, and we are indeed now looking from inside the box possibility? But how is it any new information can enter, if we had but closed all doors, to think like a "Close minded Wotian experience" will reveal of itself?:)Order of chapters, that exist as a fundamental indexed site for those who think in the box, and those who think outside of it?

Well you can now see where such introductions hold such a position for a mind like mine to consistently ever better the views for such abstraction that they be given to a new valley for consideration, that while there are such views of topos theory introduced, they now have become an aspect of the universe, not just the many possibilities, but one aspect for the consideration abstractly given such a state of existence. Who knew right?

Lee Smolin had all but said it was dead, and so too, even Witten himself convinced that such a landscape not worthy of such consideration? The work continues at least from my perspective, and now, some of the junior minds in this respect, and to those who had respect none given, know there is a little more to the story then what is the subjective journeys of a dreamer.

The false vacuum. The Hill. The Valley. Our Universe. Totally dissociatively words for the lay person to be introduced too, and together, sparked the neuron firing to include a "new thought process" about what exists beyond the 3+1 we'd given to our locations in time.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Stringy Geometry

fancier way of saying that is that in general, it's okay to model the space around us using the Euclidean metric. But the Euclidean model stops working when gravity becomes strong, as we'll see later. The Euclidean model for space


The magic square of "Albrect Durer" located in my index on the right is fascinating from the point of view that such a symmetry can be derived from the view of moving in an abstract space.

Trying to understand the implication of what is happening in a stronger gravitational field is an abstract journey for me as well, while I hold "thoughts of lensing" in my mind as a accumulative effect of something that is happening naturally out in space.

The move to Lagrangian points out in space is also an accumulative effect of thinking in this abstract way.

I not only think of the "magnetic field as as an associative value for that abstractness," it is a geometry that is the same for me, as I try to unravel the energy valuation of points(KK Tower) of any location in space. While the valuation of a circle on a 2 dimensional screen sees a string vibrating, I am moving this perception to valuations onto mathematical models.

I have nobody to help this way I have to push forward, knowing there will be mistakes, and that hopefully I am grasping the full scope of seeing in a abstract way.


Figure 2. Clebsch's Diagonal Surface: Wonderful.
We are told that "mathematics is that study which knows nothing of observation..." I think no statement could have been more opposite to the undoubted facts of the case; that mathematical analysis is constantly invoking the aid of new principles, new ideas and new methods, not capable of being defined by any form of words, but springing direct from the inherent powers and activity of the human mind, and from continually renewed introspection of that inner world of thought of which the phenomena are as varied and require as close attention to discern as those of the outer physical world, ...that it is unceasingly calling forth the faculties of observation and comparison, that one of its principal weapons is induction, that it has frequent recourse to experimental trial and verification, and that it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of the highest efforts of imagination and invention. ...Were it not unbecoming to dilate on one's personal experience, I could tell a story of almost romantic interest about my own latest researches in a field where Geometry, Algebra, and the Theory of Numbers melt in a surprising manner into one another.



Dr. Kip Thorne, Caltech 01-Relativity-The First 20th Century Revolution

It was the beginning of what might be called (and in fact is called) Stringy Geometry. The point is that strings are not points, and specifically, their extended nature means that in addition to being able to see the usual geometrical properties of a space that the theory like General Relativity can see, the strings can see other, intrinsically stringy, data. There is a quantity in the theory that is called the Kalb-Ramond field (or just the “B-field”) that can be used to measure how much the string can winds on or wraps a piece of the geometry, in essence. The parameter a that measures the size of a piece of the space that collapses when the geometry becomes singular, is essentially joined by another parameter, b, that sort of measures how much the strings have wound or smeared themselves on that piece of the space. The upshot is that a and b naturally combine themselves into a complex parameter that naturally describes the resolution process, solving the puzzle that the Mathematicians faced.
Beyond Einstein: Fixing Singularities in Spacetime

I am always trying to get the "visual models" of such proposals in terms of the B Field. Nigel Hitchin

Can you tell me, if the Dynkin diagrams and the points on a Sylvestor surface/ Cayley model have some value when looking at this subject?

Also, if it would be wrong to see "UV coordinates of a Gaussian arc" can be seen in this light as well?

I am recording this to help me understand how energy windings of the string may be seen as points on the Sylvester Surface?

See: What is Happening at the Singularity?

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Zombie Central

Peter Woit:Hopefully Nature won’t take its place as Zombie-central…

December 30th, 2007 at 11:10 am if link deleted(yep! it sure has:) see here

Plato said,

"I have never deviated from the name I use, so you get the sense of who I am.

I do not see how "pushing back the physics and energies involved" would have made these issues abut cosmology inept or classed as fantasy in the making.

Tim May, some things helped toward our understanding whether they are in the kitchen "to help gain in conceptual understanding, what others are less then able to explain in their opinion biased.

Gabe:I really don’t have any knowledge of this, but: What exactly are they trying to say about liquid helium phases and extra dimensions?


Has anyone has sufficiently answered Coin or Gabe in their questions to have offered a conclusion?

Thanks Bee for challenging what would have otherwise been a chorus of the same ole, same ole."


Now what choice do I have, if I were to comment on anything that had to do with what "String theory is doing?" Now, I would have supposedly worn out the title of any string theory article as coming from Zombie central.

Now you know the title of this post and it's origination. The source of inspiration that allows me to comment and let stand, as to the substance of Peter Woit's post. The comments that come along as well.

Zombies

What more can I say, that by putting out front the reasons why this process is not just some fantasy woven for illusionists Peter seems to qualify. To all those who may speak toward the topic of string theory or not.

Will media just leave it "to the expert" to speak for them and not challenge what is the highest opinion Peter has for the topic of string theory? I guess if you are not willing to do the work, then like Scientist, it is better to not write an article and let it die a quick death.

The Articles in Question?

Since I too cannot gain access to the Nature article without paying, I can only go by the "press releases" that Peter has been kind enough to show us. So these are directed to the Nature article.



ow-temperature physicists at Lancaster University may have found a laboratory test of the ‘untestable’ string theory.

The test – which uses two distinct phases of liquid helium - is reported online this week in Nature Physics (published 23 December). Their paper will also be published as the cover article in the paper edition of Nature Physics in January.

String theory is a multidimensional theory based on vibrating strings, as opposed to the point particles described in the Standard Model.


Second Article

DOI: 10.1038/nphys815-Richard Haley, George Pickett and co-workers have taken a lateral step to address this barrier. They cool helium-3 isotope to a superfluid state — that is, a quantum fluid with non-classical properties such as completely frictionless flow. Adding a magnetic field creates a second superfluid phase, and the interface between these two phases behaves like a two-dimensional brane. Indeed, the collision of a brane–antibrane pair leaves traces of a stringy residue of defects: a tangle of vortices.


Third article

Can you model what happened after the Big Bang in your lab?

Helium-3 experiment replicates colliding-brane theory of cosmology.
Yes, according to one group of physicists. A team at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom has used liquid helium and a magnetic field to build a finger-sized representation of the early cosmos. Their findings, published today in Nature Physics 1, could help string theorists to refine their models.


Fourth Article

Again it is one that has to be purchased from nature. All I can do it "re-quote" the selections Peter has made, and direct you to the quotes in question. You have to take my word for what is represented and how it is used by Peter. Sorry. See source of quotes here

The subject of string cosmology is a hot one these days, with theoretical advances in understanding string dynamics riffing with recent precise observations of the cosmic microwave background


The quality of the details of the comparison between 3He and cosmology is not really the point. Like a tap-dancing snake, what is amazing is not that it is done well, but that it is done at all.


Contribution to Zombie Central?

I can only assume that the example given is none other then what Peter has classified?

Does one of these test tubes hold a baby Universe?

The test tube, the size of a little finger, has been cooled to a fraction of a degree above the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero, which is just over 273 degrees below the freezing point of water.

Inside the tube an isotope of helium (called helium three) forms a "superfluid", an ordered liquid where all the atoms are in the same state according to the theory that rules the subatomic domain, called quantum theory.

What is remarkable is that atoms in the liquid, at temperatures within a thousandth of a degree of absolute zero, form structures that, according to the team at Lancaster University, are similar those seen in the cosmos.

"In effect, we have made a universe in a test tube," says Richard Haley, who did the work with Prof George Pickett and other members of the "Ultra-low Temperature Group."



Now, just hold your horses here while we consider not only the context of this article by Richard Highfield, but of the very questions I myself have asked that we might consider the context of the Telegraph article other then contributing to Zombie Central.

Warning to Viewers

It is true that there has been a lot of debate about how information currently being dealt within in science articles are giving concern to people at the forefront of science. So in this effort I see what Peter is saying. Scientists are indeed asking for this responsibility, and not just of the media themself , but of the individual in their "pursuit of the truth" of what is being portrayed out there in the science media's global vision.

I do not sanction "the classifications" that have been drummed up by Peter Woit, from intelligent design theorists, to Zombies.

The View of the Cosmos?

Now why is it that we would look to the cosmos and ask ourselves about the views that would happen in the context of universal display, as having some relevances to the microsomal world that surrounds us.

Over and over again, we are directed to applications of what happens in that cosmos as experimental processes which reveal the origins of the universe in that microcosm view? So they use a test tube. The origins of life has it's basis in that tube on a simplistic level, whether you'd like to think so or not.

Would it have been better to use the "image of the tube" and an emergent image of the colliders over top of it, as a better view of the microscopic view of the world we live in?

Powers of Ten

Many physical quantities span vast ranges of magnitude. Figures 0.1 and 0.2 use images to indicate the range of lengths and times that are of importance in physics.

Many of us understand the powers of ten, Qui?

See: Perspectives on the Power of Ten

So to get from the cosmos pallet of investigation, to one of drawing analogical
views of the vortices, is not so uncommon that we can see such vortices out there in the cosmos and not draw some conclusion to the "relativistic interpretation" that may arise in some super fluid?

I can understand Tim May's "bubble in the test analogy in the kitchen," but I would have drawn a better parallel to sonofusion(you can find examples of this on this site) as an example about reduction to the "principals of the early universe." While I see such collapse dynamically related to "gravitational collapse" this is my view with regards to the increase in temperature values that may have been attributed to the ideas about the energy increase in blackhole development and motivation for providing the routes for cosmological expansion rates. An analogy, yes.

The escape pathway for that "extra energy" to loose itself, while the computations of the values of particle creations are left for inspection. Where did that extra energy go? Is it such a "bad question" to have when looking at the microscopic view of particle creation in the birth of our cosmos? To have the universe being in such a cosmological state, that the variance of speed of expansion shall vary? Explained, with such a idea?

Relativistic Fluid Dynamics: Physics for Many Different Scales-Nils Andersson and Gregory L. Comer

In writing this review, we have tried to discuss the different building blocks that are needed if one wants to construct a relativistic theory for fluids. Although there are numerous alternatives, we opted to base our discussion of the fluid equations of motion on the variational approach pioneered by Taub [108] and in recent years developed considerably by Carter [17, 19, 21]. This is an appealing strategy because it leads to a natural formulation for multi-fluid problems. Having developed the variational framework, we discussed applications. Here we had to decide what to include and what to leave out. Our decisions were not based on any particular logic, we simply included topics that were either familiar to us, or interested us at the time. That may seem a little peculiar, but one should keep in mind that this is a “living” review. Our intention is to add further applications when the article is updated. On the formal side, we could consider how one accounts for elastic media and magnetic fields, as well as technical issues concerning relativistic vortices (and cosmic strings). On the application side, we may discuss many issues for astrophysical fluid flows (like supernova core collapse, jets, gamma-ray bursts, and cosmology).

In updating this review we will obviously also correct the mistakes that are sure to be found by helpful colleagues. We look forward to receiving any comments on this review. After all, fluids describe physics at many different scales and we clearly have a lot of physics to learn. The only thing that is certain is that we will enjoy the learning process!


So you understand that the views of the string theorist is not limited to the microcosmic view, but endorses the cosmological one as well.:) See the Lagrangian views supplied on this site to understand how gravity has been incorporated in the cosmological view.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

String Theory Crib Sheet

http://seedmagazine.com/images/uploads/cribsheet9.pdf

My wife and I are in transient, so I am posting this from my oldest daughters home.

We head back to our home town and set up for living for the next month in new travel trailer we purchased. We will be placing this on the land while we construct the new home we will be building. It is better for security reasons with all the homes under construction that there be some presence.

The topic above in the crib sheet was taken from Seed Magazine, and was done with the help of Clifford Johnson.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Blackhole Horizon, "as a Hill?"


Physically, the effect can be interpreted as an object moving from the "false vacuum" (where = 0) to the more stable "true vacuum" (where = v). Gravitationally, it is similar to the more familiar case of moving from the hilltop to the valley. In the case of Higgs field, the transformation is accompanied with a "phase change", which endows mass to some of the particles.
See Bubble Nucleation

You know I have these thoughts about the string landscape. No where do I find a conversation ongoing that speaks to this.

I am directing our views back to the origins of the universe so that while the geometrics of Smolin's is speaking to what manifests in our universe, the propagation there holds a vast difference to what is being implied in the geometrical topology to other possible expressions asking for clarification "in tunnneling" with the string theory landscape

With regards to the matrimonial issues of the science and quantum gravity, any perspectives with differing views would help elucidate the problems. So one may help indicate "the network" to which each is thinking and thus reveal the attributes encoded in that marriage. This is a well balanced approach to facing the future in regards to science in my view? :)

Hurricane tree © by Jocke Berglund See " A tree in the forest"

Without continuing debate one may come to a dead end, whilst the "opening to diversity" had already been implied in quantum gravity research. Which part of the elephant are you grabbing on too?

Plato:
I know most have moved on.

String Theory Landscape

Quantum Effect, however allow a manifold to change state abruptly at some point-to tunnel through the intervening ridge to a nearby lower valley.


See here

AS a layman I needed to understand the differences of String theory Landscape and Fitness landscape? Are others having the same problem?

Fitness landscape

In evolutionary biology, fitness landscapes or adaptive landscapes are used to visualize the relationship between genotypes (or phenotypes) and reproductive success. It is assumed that every genotype has a well defined replication rate (often referred to as fitness). This fitness is the “height” of the landscape.


See here

Always still a puzzle to me. :) Thanks for your patience.


[Published in: Chains of Affection: The Structure of Adolescent Romantic and Sexual Networks, Bearman, Moody and Stovel, American Journal of Sociology, 110, 1 (July 2004) 44-91.] See "Sexual Network."

It was important that I distinguish between positions currently adopt by the String community and what is proposed in argument by Lee Smolin's perception? You had to know that regardless of the views extolled by each of them, they must each have some "geometrical basis" that allows us to understand what the "bubble nucleation" is talking about. The false vacuum and it's movement to the true.

You had to identify the mechanism used here to extol the points being made.

Some may have designs of networks that speak to the propagation of what this Fitness landscape is about, and people would not be all the wiser if they had understood the geometrical inclination described in the quote above placed at Clifford's ongoing conflict of representation about string theory to have it further announced at Cosmic Variance as String Theory loosing some kind of battle?

Using Boltzman's brain as a recall of what is happening in the blackhole is part of the discussion I had been trying to move forward without any help from those that should be standing front and centre, regarding their respective fields. Why I have hung around Clifford's continued efforts to answer this supposed Conflict? In face of proponents who would like to bury string theory for what ever reason.

I have to include this post so that you understand the relationship of

If one cannot see "the mechanism being used" then of course it won't make sense.

String Theory Landscape

Quantum Effect, however allow a manifold to change state abruptly at some point-to tunnel through the intervening ridge to a nearby lower valley.

Some maybe happy with the propagation of the species :) but one would have to draw their attention to the geometrical basis of these two differing views on the landscape brought forward?

I am invoking "Boltzmann's brain" here. :) While it may ensue from "first principles" I am still referring to quantum gravity in both regards.

If this is not done, then the debate will continue, "in the land of babble" and "Pink Elephants." Us lay people are not happy about this.
See here for link.

So without identifying the "physics involved" and the "geometrical basis" what use is there to continue the debate while it had been thought that the layman were disrupting the process while the supposed educational level was being somehow more responsible?

It required that we indentify the markers from which to progress and in doing this, one then gets a fothold on the ensuing debate about string theory landscape versus Smolin's Fitness landscape? Hope I got this right?

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Angels and Demons on a Pinhead

"Observations always involve theory."Edwin Hubble
Curvature Parameters

Of course I had to point to the cosmological understanding that took us to this "geometrical understanding of things that are large." But this is to be short, while I crunch the thoughts of the process to the pinhead. You can follow the "picture links" and learn more on your own time.


Calabi-Yau manifold (3D projection made with Mathematica)-
In either case, gravity acting in the hidden dimensions affects other non-gravitational forces such as electromagnetism. In fact, Kaluza and Klein's early work demonstrated that general relativity with five large dimensions and one small dimension actually predicts the existence of electromagnetism. However, because of the nature of Calabi-Yau manifolds, no new forces appear from the small dimensions, but their shape has a profound effect on how the forces between the strings appear in our four dimensional universe. In principle, therefore, it is possible to deduce the nature of those extra dimensions by requiring consistency with the standard model, but this is not yet a practical possibility. It is also possible to extract information regarding the hidden dimensions by precision tests of gravity, but so far these have only put upper limitations on the size of such hidden dimensions.


How many would have thought that such a micro-perspective could have been ever be taken down to "this level" and found an analogy that is suitable? You needed something more here to consider, yet, I will call it "angel and demons" for those who like the mystery.


Image: courtesy Andrew J. Hanson, Indiana University-A computer-generated rendering of a possible six-dimensional geometry similar to those studied by UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu.

I will try and spell out what is happening at such a microperspective level. You might wonder, how did such ideas become what is, "the good and evil of the world" is really a part of the dynamics that we see geometrically enhanced, as we delve ever deeper into this mystery of reductionism and such. On how, we may look at cosmology that "is different" with this perspective.

Energy "is" Gravitationally Related

At some point, those considering "all this energy" and the way reduction is assigned to the energy at all levels, what shall any calorimetric pick up as such collision processes seek to define "every contact" as we want to "map the pinhead" accordingly?

Lubos Motl saids that he sees the relation to such dynamical situations as "fruitful research" toward the understanding of the cosmological descriptions implied from such micro states. To have it listed according to a "geometrical perspective" we might be able to assign each universe? Okay! He did not say that exactly, so check into his blog entry for an update.

I'd like to thank Quasar9 for reporting on this as well.

Orbitals



My thoughts have been there toward reductionism's more cosmological counterpart for some time now. So I enjoy, that the views that I have had about the microperspective have indeed been sanctioned at some science level according to the scientist in the know. Yes, I can prove my thoughts here for you, so you know what I mean.


The star Eta Carina is ejecting a pair of huge lobes that form a "propeller" shape. Jet-like structures are emanating from the center (or "waist"), where the star (quite small on this scale) is located.


Now it is indeed a "greater depth of perception" that asks us to delve into the microperspective of string world. How is it the cosmological world can have such similarities, while the story of the Calabi Yau, makes itself a headlight news current in the research of string theory?

The First Few Microseconds, by Michael Riordan and Willaim A. Zajc
During those early moments, matter was an ultrahot, superdense brew of particles called quarks and gluons rushing hither and thither and crashing willy-nilly into one another. A sprinkling of electrons, photons and other light elementary particles seasoned the soup. This mixture had a temperature in the trillions of degrees, more than 100,000 times hotter than the sun's core.


See:
  • Angels and Demons
  • Doppelgänger Favors Oscillate
  • Music of the Spheres
  • A Clear Presence-Friday
  • Tuesday, January 02, 2007

    The Sun's Before Us

    The Cosmic Ray of Creation

    We are "shadows" of the Sun's creations.


    Sometimes it good to go back to "the beginning" so that one can see the context of what exists in reality, has a much "greater story to tell" then what we of the real world live under.

    Those of science, have been focused in their own worlds. We just had to understand why they were so absorbed.

    "String theory and other possibilities can distort the relative numbers of 'down' and 'up' neutrinos," said Jonathan Feng, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine. "For example, extra dimensions may cause neutrinos to create microscopic black holes, which instantly evaporate and create spectacular showers of particles in the Earth's atmosphere and in the Antarctic ice cap. This increases the number of 'down' neutrinos detected. At the same time, the creation of black holes causes 'up' neutrinos to be caught in the Earth's crust, reducing the number of 'up' neutrinos. The relative 'up' and 'down' rates provide evidence for distortions in neutrino properties that are predicted by new theories."


    Who is to know of what is sent to earth, and not understand, that what happens above us, also happens within the LHC?


    Jacque Distler:

    Travis Stewart reports that the LHC’s ATLAS detector has seen cosmic ray events, an excellent sign that things are working as they should.


    One does not have to think, or be insulted by "such stories" that have captured minds in our history. The "ideas of cultures" are pervaded by such religious practises and context, by the fascination of some greater being? Having worked with them long enough?

    As a scientist, you know your place in the world. Yet, you dream of such "fantastical stories." About things travelling through the little towns in Europe, as if, seeing the "Overlords of Science." Like some futuristic God making it's way through the town of some primitive era on earth. "Shocked people" looking from windows, as this enormous object in the "war of the worlds," has finally come upon us.

    The article traces in non-technical language the historical development of our understanding of nuclear fusion reactions as the source of stellar energy, beginning with the controversy over the age of the sun and earth between Darwin and Kelvin, and including the discovery of radioactivity, the experimental demonstration that four hydrogen nuclei are heavier than a helium nucleus, and the theoretical insights provided by Einstein, Gamow, and Bethe. The concluding sections concern solar neutrino experiments that were designed to test the theory of stellar evolution and which, in the process, apparently revealed new aspects of microscopic physics.


    It is important that one understands that such a thing having been studied by our scientists, is still a "noble thing." Where we learn to understand what these things could represent symbolically? Enlightenment possibly? When all the understanding of the "Neutrino overlords" are understood in their place and time.



    The winged sun was an ancient (3rd millennium BC) symbol of Horus, later identified with Ra.
    A solar deity is a god or goddess who represents the sun, or an aspect of it. People have worshipped the sun and solar deities for all of recorded history; sun worship is also known as heliolatry. Hence, many beliefs and legends have been formed around this worship, most notably the various myths containing the "missing sun" motif from around the world. Although many sources contend that solar deities are generally male, and the brother, father, husband and/or enemy of the lunar deity (usually female), this is not cross-culturally upheld, as sun goddesses are found on every continent. Some mythologists, such as Brian Branston, therefore contend that sun goddesses are more common worldwide than their male counterparts. They also claim that the belief that solar deities are primarily male is linked to the fact that a few better known mythologies (such as those of ancient Greece and Egypt) sometimes break from this rule. The dualism of sun/male/light and moon/female/darkness is found in many (but not all) European traditions that derive from Orphic and Gnostic philosophies, with a notable exception being Germanic mythology, where the Sun is female and the Moon is male.

    Sun worship is a possible origin of henotheism and ultimately monotheism. In ancient Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, Akhenaten's heretical Atenism used the old Aten solar deity as a symbol of a single god. The neolithic concept of a solar barge, the sun as traversing the sky in a boat, is found in ancient Egypt, with Ra and Horus. Proto-Indo-European religion has a solar chariot, the sun as traversing the sky in a chariot. At Roman Empire, a festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun (or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) was celebrated when the duration of daylight first begins to increase after the winter solstice, — the "rebirth" of the sun. In Germanic mythology this is Sol, in Vedic Surya and in Greek Helios and (sometimes) Apollo. Mesopotamian Shamash plays an important role during the Bronze Age, and "my Sun" is eventually used as an address to royalty. Similarly, South American cultures have emphatic Sun worship, see Inti. See also Sol Invictus.

    Thursday, December 14, 2006

    Against Symmetry

    The term “symmetry” derives from the Greek words sun (meaning ‘with’ or ‘together’) and metron (‘measure’), yielding summetria, and originally indicated a relation of commensurability (such is the meaning codified in Euclid's Elements for example). It quickly acquired a further, more general, meaning: that of a proportion relation, grounded on (integer) numbers, and with the function of harmonizing the different elements into a unitary whole. From the outset, then, symmetry was closely related to harmony, beauty, and unity, and this was to prove decisive for its role in theories of nature. In Plato's Timaeus, for example, the regular polyhedra are afforded a central place in the doctrine of natural elements for the proportions they contain and the beauty of their forms: fire has the form of the regular tetrahedron, earth the form of the cube, air the form of the regular octahedron, water the form of the regular icosahedron, while the regular dodecahedron is used for the form of the entire universe. The history of science provides another paradigmatic example of the use of these figures as basic ingredients in physical description: Kepler's 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum presents a planetary architecture grounded on the five regular solids.





    The basic difference that I see is the way in which Lee Smolin adopts his views of what science is in relation too, "Two traditions in the search for fundamental Physics."

    It is strange indeed to see perfection of Lee Smolin's comparison and having a look further down we understand the opening basis of his philosophical thoughts in regards to the title "against symmetry?"

    Some reviews on the "Trouble With Physics," by Lee Smolin

  • Seed Magazine, August 2006
  • Time magazine August 21, 2006
  • Discover Magazine, September 2006 &
  • Scientific American, September 2006
  • Wired September 2006:15 :
  • The Economist, Sept 14, 2006
  • The New York Times Book review, Sep 17, 2006 by Tom Siegfried
  • The Boston Globe, Sept 17, 2006
  • USA Today, Sept 19, 2006
  • The New York Sun, by Michael Shermer, Sept 27, 2006
  • The New Yorker,  by Jim Holt Sept 25,2006
  • The LA Times, by K C Cole, Oct 8, 2006
  • Nature,
  • by George Ellis (Nature 44, 482, 5 Oct. 2006)
  • San Fransisco Chronicle , by Keay Davidson, Oct 13, 2006
  • Dallas Morning News, by FRED BORTZ, Oct 15, 2006
  • Toronto Star, by PETER CALAMAI, Oct 15, 2006


  • But before I begin in that direction I wanted people to understand something that is held in the mind of the "condense matter theorist." In terms of the building blocks of nature. This is important basis of understanding, that any building block could emergent from anything, we had to identify where this symmetry existed, before it manifested in the "matter states of reality."

    Everyone knows that human societies organize themselves. But it is also true that nature organizes itself, and that the principles by which it does this is what modern science, and especially modern physics, is all about. The purpose of my talk today is to explain this idea.


    So it is important to understand what is emergent and what exists in the "theory of everything" if it did not consider the context of symmetry? AS a layman trying to get underneath the thinking process of any book development, it is important to me.

    Symmetry considerations dominate modern fundamental physics, both in quantum theory and in relativity. Philosophers are now beginning to devote increasing attention to such issues as the significance of gauge symmetry, quantum particle identity in the light of permutation symmetry, how to make sense of parity violation, the role of symmetry breaking, the empirical status of symmetry principles, and so forth. These issues relate directly to traditional problems in the philosophy of science, including the status of the laws of nature, the relationships between mathematics, physical theory, and the world, and the extent to which mathematics dictates physics.


    The idea here then is to find super strings place within context of the evolving universe, in terms of, "the microseconds" and not the "first three minutes" of Steven Weinberg.

    So it is important to see the context with which this discussion is taking place, in terms of the high energy and from that state of existence to what entropically manifests into the universe now.

    Confronting A Position Adopted By Lee Smolin


    A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.

    This is only "one point of contention" that was being addressed at Clifford Johnson's Asymptotia.

    Jacques Distler :

    This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

    What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.


    There is no doubt that the "timeliness of statements" can further define, support or not, problems that are being discussed. I don't mind being deleted on the point of the post above, because our good scientist's are getting into the heat of things. I am glad Arun stepped up to the plate.

    Part of finally coming to some head on debate, was seeing how Peter Woit along with Lee Smolin were being challlenged for their views, while there had been this ground swell created against a model that was developed, like Loop quantum gravity was developed. One of the two traditions in search for the fundamental physics. Loop qunatum Gravity and String theory(must make sure there is the modification to M theory?) Shall this be included?


    Click on link Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

    But as they are having this conversation, it is this openness that they have given of themselves that we learn of the intricacies of the basis of arguments, so the public is better informed as to what follows and what has to take place.


    Against symmetry (Paris, June 06)

    So while this issue is much more complex then just the exchange there, I have not forgotten what it is all about. Or why one may move from a certain position after they have summarize the views they had accumulated with regards to the subject of String/M theory as a model that has out lived it's usefulness, in terms of not providing a experimental frame work around it.

    Wednesday, December 13, 2006

    Visual Abstraction to Equations

    Sylvester's models lay hidden away for a long time, but recently the Mathematical Institute received a donation to rescue some of them. Four of these were carefully restored by Catherine Kimber of the Ashmolean Museum and now sit in an illuminated glass cabinet in the Institute Common Room.


    Some of you might have noticed the reference to the Ashmolean Museum?


    Photo by Graham Challifour. Reproduced from Critchlow, 1979, p. 132.


    It seems only the good scientist John Baez had epitomes the construction of the Platonic solids? A revision then, of the "time line of history" and the correction he himself had to make? Let's not be to arrogant to know that once we understand more and look at "the anomalies" it forces us to revise our assessments.

    The Art form

    I relayed this image and quote below on Clifford's site to encourage the thinking of young people into an art form that is truly amazing to me. Yes I get excited about it after having learnt of Gauss and Reimann's exceptional abilities to move into the non euclidean world.

    Some think me a crackpot here? If you did not follow the history then how would you know to also include the "physics of approach," as well? Also, some might ask what use "this ability to see the visual abstraction" and I think this art form is in a way destined, to what was kept in glass cabinets and such, even while the glass cabinet in analogy is held in the brain/space of them) who have developed such artistic abilities.

    It's as if you move past the layers of the evolution of the human being(brain casings) and it evolution and the field that surrounds them. Having accomplished the intellect( your equations and such), has now moved into the world of imagery. Closet to this is the emotive field which circumvents our perspective on the greater potential of the world in the amazing thought forms of imagery. This move outward, varies for each of us from time to time. Some who are focused in which ever area can move beyond them. This paragraph just written is what would be considered crackpot(I dislike that word)because of the long years of research I had gone through to arrive at this point.

    Of course, those views above are different.

    Mapping



    Is it illusionary or delusional, and having looked at the Clebsch's Diagonal Surface below, how is it that "abstraction" written?



    The enthusiasm that characterized such collections was captured by Francis Bacon [1, p. 247], who ironically advised "learned gentlemen" of the era to assemble within "a small compass a model of the universal made private", building

    ... a goodly, huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included.


    There is no doubt that the long road to understanding science is the prerequisite to mapping the images from an equation's signs and symbols. While not sitting in the classroom of the teachers it was necessary to try and move into the fifth dimensional referencing of our computer screen to see what is being extolled here not just in image development, but of what the physics is doing in relation.

    In 1849 already, the British mathematicians Salmon ([Sal49]) and Cayley ([Cay49]) published the results of their correspondence on the number of straight lines on a smooth cubic surface. In a letter, Cayley had told Salmon, that their could only exist a finite number - and Salmon answered, that the number should be exactly 27



    So of course to be the historical journey was established like most things, Mandelstam current and what is happening there as an interlude, as well as helping to establish some understanding of the abstractions that had been developed.



    But yes, before moving to current day imagery and abstraction, I had to understand how these developments were being tackled in today's theoretical sciences.

    Saturday, December 02, 2006

    Finiteness of String Theory and Mandelstam



    It might be that the laws change absolutely with time; that gravity for instance varies with time and that this inverse square law has a strength which depends on how long it is since the beginning of time. In other words, it's possible that in the future we'll have more understanding of everything and physics may be completed by some kind of statement of how things started which are external to the laws of physics. Richard Feynman



    I was lead into this subject of Quantum Gravity, by Lee Smolin's book called, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity." As a lay person reading what our scientist's have to say, I have a vested interest in what can start one off and find, that changes are being made to the synopsis first written. Did I understand his position correctly from the very beginning? I'll have to go back over my notes.

    But with this format now I have the opportunity to...ahem... get it..directly from the horses mouth(no disrespect intended and written based on knowing how to read horses). As I said, I tried early on to see how the situation of string theory could be refuted. I "instigated" as a comparative front for Lubos Motl and Peter Woit to speak from each of their positions. I had to disregard "the tones" set by either, as to the nature of whose what and how ignorant one might be, and comparatively, one might be to intelligent design? To get "some evidence" of why string theory might not be such a good idea?

    Now I believe this is a more "civil situation" that such a format has been proposed and that Lee Smolin can speak directly. As well as, "further information" supplied to counter arguments to Lee's position.


    A sphere with three handles (and three holes), i.e., a genus-3 torus.


    Jacques Distler :
    This is false. The proof of finiteness, to all orders, is in quite solid shape. Explicit formulæ are currently known only up to 3-loop order, and the methods used to write down those formulæ clearly don’t generalize beyond 3 loops.

    What’s certainly not clear (since you asked a very technical question, you will forgive me if my response is rather technical) is that, beyond 3 loops, the superstring measure over supermoduli space can be “pushed forward” to a measure over the moduli space of ordinary Riemann surfaces. It was a nontrivial (and, to many of us, somewhat surprising) result of d’Hoker and Phong that this does hold true at genus-2 and -3.


    Just a reminder about my skills. While I do things like carpetry, plumbing, electrical, I do not call myself a Carpenter, a Plumber or a Electrician. Nor shall I ah-spire to be more then I'm not, as I am to old this time around.

    Greg Kuperberg:
    The string theorists are physicists and this is their intuition. Do you want physical intuition or not?

    Okay, Smolin is also a physicist and his intuition is radically different from that of the strings theorists. So who is right?


    Yet, least I not read these things, can I not decipher "the jest" while it not being to technical? Shall I call it a Physicists intuition or I will only call my intuition what it is?

    Jacques Distler:
    When most people (at least, most quantum field theorists) use the term “finiteness,” they are referring to UV finiteness.


    While the things above talked about from Jacques are served by hindsight, "the jest" follows what comes after this point.

    The Jest of the Problem?

    My present research concerns the problem of topology changing in string theory. It is currently believed that one has to sum over all string backgrounds and all topologies in doing the functional integral. I suspect that certain singular string backgrounds may be equivalent to topology changes, and that it is consequently only necessary to sum over string backgrounds. As a start I am investigating topology changes in two-dimensional target spaces. I am also interested in Seiberg-Witten invariants. Although much has been learned, some basic questions remain, and I hope to be able at least to understand the simpler of these questionsStanley Mandelstam-Professor Emeritus Particle Theory


    Gina has asked questions in context of "academic excellence" in relation to what is being seen in relation to string theory. Of course we thank Clifford for providing the format for that discussion.

    The Trouble With Physics,” by Lee Smolin, Index page 382, Mandelstam, Stanley, and string theory finiteness, pages 117,187, 278-79, 280, 281, 367n14,15

    For reference above.

    Gina:
    I raised 16 points that I felt Lee’s arguments were not correct or problematic. This is an academic discussion and not a public criticism, and I truly think that such critique can be useful, even if I am wrong on all the 16 points.

    Three of my 16 points were on more technical issues, but I feel that I can understand Lee’s logical argument even without understanding the precise technical nature of “finiteness of string theory” (I do have a vague impression of what it is.) I think that my interpretation of this issue is reasonable and my critique stands.


    I find this interesting based on what information has been selected to counter the arguments that Lee Smolin used to support his contentions about what is being defined in string theory.


    Stanley Mandelstam Professor Emeritus Research: Particle Physics
    My research concerns string theory. At present I am interested in finding an explicit expression for the n-loop superstring amplitude and proving that it is finite. My field of research is particle theory, more specifically string theory. I am also interested in the recent results of Seiberg and Witten in supersymmetric field theories.


    So of course, here, I am drawn to the content of his book and what is the basis of his argument from those four pages. I hope my explanation so far summarizes adequately. For the lay person, this information is leading perspective as to the basis of the argument.

    Lee Smolin:
    Perturbative finiteness is a major element of the claim of string theory as a potential theory of nature. If it is not true then the case for string theory being a theory of nature would not be very strong.

    -Perturbative finiteness has not been proven. There is evidence for it, but that evidence is partial. There is a complete proof only to genus two, which is the second non-trivial term in an infinite power series, each term of which has to be finite. The obstacles to a complete proof are technical and formidable; otherwise we would certainly have either a proof or a counterexample by now. There is some progress in an alternative formulation, which has not yet been shown to be equivalent to the standard definition of string theory.

    -This is not an issue of theoretical physicists rigor vrs mathematical rigor. There is no proof at either level. There is an intuitive argument, but that is far from persuasive as the issue is what happens at the boundaries of super-moduli space where the assumption of that argument breaks down. In the formulation in which there is a genus two result it is not clear if there is an unambiguous definition of the higher order terms.

    Is string theory in fact perturbatively finite? Many experts think so. I worry that if there were a clear way to a proof it would have been found and published, so I find it difficult to have a strong expectation, either way, on this issue.


    It should be known here and here that all along I have been reacting to Lee Smolin's new book. The title itself should have given this away?

    The explanation of scientific development in terms of paradigms was not only novel but radical too, insofar as it gives a naturalistic explanation of belief-change. Thomas Kuhn


    So of course knowing the basis of my thought development is a "good idea" as the links show what spending our dollars can do, having bought what our good scientist Lee Smolin has written.

    There is a little "tit for tat" going on right now, but I think the point has been made sufficiently clear as to where Gina's thoughts in regards to the points on Finiteness is being made beyond 2?

    In these lectures, recent progress on multiloop superstring perturbation theory is reviewed. A construction from first principles is given for an unambiguous and slice-independent two-loop superstring measure on moduli space for even spin structure. A consistent choice of moduli, invariant under local worldsheet supersymmetry is made in terms of the super-period matrix. A variety of subtle new contributions arising from a careful gauge fixing procedure are taken into account.


    Yes I think I have to wait now to see if the discussion can now move beyond the first three points raised? Hopefully Lee will respond soon?

    How do you fight sociology

    Because this by any of the leaders of string theory. it was left to someone like me, as a quasi "insider" who had the technical knowledge but not the sociological commitment, to take on that responsibility. And I had done so because of my own interest in string theory, which I was working on almost exclusively at the time. Nevertheless, some string theorists regarded the review as a hostile act.

    The trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin, Page 281


    I have discovered one of Lee Smolin's objection to a string theorist. They are only craftsman, and not seers.