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Showing posts from October, 2018

Dear Dr B: Should 1 Report String Theory?

Strings. [image: freeimages.com ] “Greetings doctor Hossenfelder! I am a Princeton physics major who regularly reads your wonderful blog. I lately came across a curious passage inwards Brian Greene’s introduction to a reprint edition of Einstein's Meaning of Relativity which claims that: “Superstring theory successfully merges full general relativity in addition to quantum mechanics [...] Moreover, non exclusively does superstring theory merge full general relativity with quantum mechanics, but it also has the capacity to comprehend — on an equal reason — the electromagnetic force, the weak force, in addition to the strong force. Within superstring theory, each of these forces is merely associated with a dissimilar vibrational designing of a string. And so, similar a guitar chord composed of 4 dissimilar notes, the 4 forces of nature are united inside the music of superstring theory. What’s more, the same goes for all of thing every bit well. The electron, the quarks,

Measuring Scientific Broadness

I select a novel newspaper out today too it wouldn’t select happened without this blog. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 twelvemonth ago, I wrote a blogpost declaring that  “academia is fucked up,”  to quote myself because my words are the best words. In that blogpost, I had or so suggestions how to improve the situation, for illustration past times offering ways to quantify scientific activeness other than counting papers too citations. But ranting on a weblog is similar screaming inwards the desert: when the dust settles you’re all the same inwards the desert. At to the lowest degree that’s been my experience. Not so this time! In the calendar week next the blogpost, 3 guys wrote to me expressing their involvement inwards working on what I suggested. One of them I never heard of again. The other ii didn’t teach along too ane of them eventually dropped out. My hopes sank. But too so I got a little grant from the Foundational Questions Institute too was able to supplant the dro

The Overproduction Crisis Inwards Physics As Well As Why You Lot Should Attention Most It

[Image: Everett Collection] In the years of World War II, National Socialists executed virtually vi 1 thou 1000 Jews. The events did non guide maintain a unmarried cause, but most historians concord that a major argue was social reinforcement, to a greater extent than widely known every bit “group think.” The Germans who went along amongst the Nazis’ organized majority murder were non psychopaths. By all accounts they were “normal people.” They actively or passively supported genocide because at the fourth dimension it was a socially acceptable position; everyone else did it too. And they did non personally experience responsible for the evils of the system. It eased their heed that some scientists claimed it was only rational to forbid supposedly genetically inferior humans from reproducing. And they hesitated to vocalisation disagreement because those who opposed the Nazis risked retaliation. It’s comforting to intend that was Then as well as There, non Now as well as Here. B

This Is How One Pray

I know, y'all convey all missed my awesome chord progressions, merely create non despair, I convey relief for your bored ears. I am lastly reasonably happy amongst the song recordings if non amongst the processing, or the singing, or the lyrics. But working on that. The video was painful, both figuratively together with literally; I am clearly also sometime to crouch on the flooring for extended periods together with had to hobble stairs for days afterwards the filming. The set out i comment I maintain my music videos is, sadly enough, non "wow, y'all are together with thence amazingly gifted" merely "where create y'all honour the time?". To which the response is "I don't". I did the filming for this video on Christmas, the well on Easter, together with finished on Pentecost. If it wasn't for those Christian holidays, I'd never popular off anything done. So, give cheers God, instantly y'all know how I pray.

What Produce Physicists Hateful When They Say The Laws Of Nature Are Beautiful?

Simplicity inward photographic art. “Monday Blues Chat” By Erin Photography In my upcoming mass “Lost inward Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray,” I explicate what makes a theory beautiful inward the eyes of a physicist together with how beauty matters for their research. For this, I interviewed virtually a dozen theoretical physicists ( full listing here ) together with spoke to many more. I besides read every mass I could abide by on the topic, starting alongside Chandrasekhar’s “Truth together with Beauty” to McAllister’s “Beauty together with Revolution inward Science” together with Orrell’s “Truth or Beauty” . Turns out theoretical physicists largely handgrip on what they hateful past times beauty, together with it has the next 3 aspects: Simplicity: Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 beautiful theory is simple, together with it is unproblematic if it tin endure derived from few assumptions. Currently mutual ways to growth simplicity inward the foundations of physics i

New Results Confirm Erstwhile Anomaly Inwards Neutrino Data

The collaboration of a neutrino experiment called MiniBooNe but published their novel results: Observation of a Significant Excess of Electron-Like Events inwards the MiniBooNE Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiment MiniBooNE Collaboration arXiv: 1805.12028 [hep-ex] It’s a rather unassuming paper, but it deserves a betoken boost because for in i lawsuit nosotros accept an anomaly that did non vanish alongside farther examination. Indeed, it truly increased inwards significance, right away standing at a whopping 6.1σ. MiniBooNE was designed to depository fiscal establishment check the results of an before experiment called LSND, the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiment that ran inwards the 1990s. The LSND results were famously incompatible the results of a mass of other neutrino experiments. So incompatible, indeed, that the LSND information are ordinarily excluded from global fits – they but don’t fit. All the other experimental information could hold upwards neatly fit

Book Update: Books Are Printed!

Lara. I had exactly returned from my trip to Dublin when the door rang too the UPS human being dumped 2 big boxes on our doorstep. My hubby has a habit of ordering books past times the dozens, too then my commencement thought was that this fourth dimension he’d truly outdone himself. Alas, the UPS guy pointed out, the boxes were addressed to me. I signed, feeling guilty for having forgotten I ordered something from Lebanon, that existence the beginning of the parcels. But when I cutting the record too opened the boxes I flora – drumrolls delight – 25 copies “ Lost inwards Math ”. Turns out my publisher has their books printed inwards Lebanon . I hadn’t gotten neither galleys nor review copies, too then that was the commencement fourth dimension I truly saw The-Damned-Book, equally it’s been referred to inwards our menage for the past times 3 years. And The-Damned-Book is finally, FINALLY, a existent book! The encompass looks much amend inwards impress than it does inwards t

Physicist Concludes At That Spot Are No Laws Of Physics.

It was June 4th, 2018, when Robbert Dijkgraaf, manager of the world-renown Princeton Institute for Advanded Study, announced his breakthrough insight. After decades of investigating string theory, Dijkgraaf has concluded that at that topographic point are no laws of physics . Guess that’s it, then, folks. Don’t forget to plow off the low-cal when yous unopen the lab door for the terminal time. Dijkgraaf knows what he is talking about. “Once yous convey understood the linguistic communication of which [the cosmos] is written, it is extremely elegant, beautiful, powerful too natural,” he explained already inward 2015 , “The universe wants to endure understood too that’s why nosotros are all driven past times this urge to detect an all-encompassing theory.” This urge has driven Dijkgraaf too many of his colleagues to pursue string theory, which they originally hoped would give ascent to the unique theory of everything. That didn’t quite pan out though, too non surprisingly so: The s

Science Magazine Had My Mass Reviewed, Together With It’S Glorious, Glorious.

Science Magazine had my majority “Lost inward Math” reviewed past times Dr. Djuna Lize Croon, a postdoctoral associate at the Department of Physics at Dartmouth College, inward New Hampshire, USA. Dr. Croon has worked on the really query topics that my majority exposes equally mathematical fantasies, such equally “ extra natural inflation ” or “ holographic composite Higgs models ,” thus choosing her to review my majority is an interesting motion for sure. Dr. Croon does non disappoint. After just having read a whole majority that explains how scientists neglect to admit that their opinions are influenced past times the communities they are business office of, Dr. Croon begins her review past times quoting an anonymous Facebook friend who denigrates me equally a blogger as well as tells Dr. Croon to dislike my majority because I am non “offering solutions.” In her review, then, Dr. Croon reports beingness shocked to detect that I disagree amongst her scientific heroes, dislike

Video Trailer For Lost Inwards Math

I’ve been told that ane straight off does video trailers for books as well as and thus here’s me explaining what led me to write the book.

Are The Laws Of Nature Beautiful? (2Nd Majority Trailer)

Here is the other video trailer for my majority "Lost inward Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray".  Since I accept been asked repeatedly, allow me emphasize in ane lawsuit again that the majority is aimed at non-experts, or "the interested lay-reader" equally they say. You produce non demand to convey whatever background noesis inward math or physics and, no, in that place are no equations inward the book, merely a few numbers. It's actually close the inquiry what nosotros hateful past times "beautiful theories" in addition to how that bespeak for beauty affects scientists' enquiry interests. You volition empathize that without equations. The majority has meanwhile been read past times several non-physicists in addition to none of them reported cracking levels of frustration, in addition to then I accept argue to remember I roughly aimed at the correct degree of technical detail. Having said that, the majority should too last of involveme

Lost Inwards Math: Out Now.

an interview alongside me inwards the electrical flow number of “Der Spiegel” (in German) alongside a fancy photo, too an excerpt at Scientific American . In the mass I don’t tell much nigh myself or my ain research. I felt that was both superfluous too non especially interesting. However, a lot of people convey asked me nigh a comment I made inwards the passing inwards an before blogpost: “By writing [this book], I waived my hopes of always getting tenure.” Even the Spiegel-guy who interviewed me asked nigh this! So I experience similar I should add together some explanation hither to foreclose misunderstandings. I promise yous excuse that this volition travel somewhat to a greater extent than personal than my park blogposts. I am non tenured too I produce non convey a tenure-track position, too thence non similar someone threatened me. I soon convey a temporary contract which volition run out adjacent year. What I should travel doing correct right away is applying for faculty

Physicists Are Really Predictable

I convey a novel newspaper on the arXiv , which came out of a collaboration amongst Tobias Mistele in addition to Tom Price. We fed a neural network amongst information most the publication action of physicists in addition to tried to brand a “fake” prediction, for which nosotros used information from the years 1996 upward to 2008 to predict the side past times side x years. Data come upward from the arXiv via the Open Archives Initiative . To prepare the network, nosotros took a random sample of authors in addition to asked the network to predict these authors’ publication data. In each bike the network learned how proficient or bad its prediction was in addition to and so tried to farther improve it. Concretely, nosotros trained the network to predict the h -index, a mensurate for the issue of citations a researcher has accumulated. We didn’t purpose this issue because nosotros recall it’s especially important, but exactly because other groups convey previously studied it amongs

Astrophysicists Drive To Falsify Multiverse, Uncovering They Can’T.

Ben Carson, trying to make feel of the multiverse. The thought that nosotros alive inwards a multiverse – an interplanetary space collection of universes from which ours is only i – is interesting but unscientific. It postulates the being of entities that are unnecessary to depict what nosotros observe. All those other universes are inaccessible to experiment. Science, therefore, cannot tell anything close their existence, neither whether they do be nor whether they don’t exist. The EAGLE collaboration at nowadays knows this too. They late published results of a figurer simulation that details how the formation of galaxies is affected when i changes the value of the cosmological constant, the constant which quantifies how fast the expansion of the universe accelerates. The thought is that, if you lot believe inwards the multiverse, so each simulation shows a dissimilar universe. And i time you lot know which universes give ascent to galaxies, you lot tin forcefulness out calculat

Particle Physics Right Away Belly Up

Particle physics. Artist’s impression. Professor Ben Allanach is a particle physicist at Cambridge University. He exactly wrote an promotion for my book that appeared on Aeon roughly days agone nether the championship “Going Nowhere Fast” . I’m kidding of course, Allanach’s essay has no relation to my book. At to the lowest degree non that I know of. But it’s non a coincidence he writes virtually the really problems that I also speak over inward my book . After all, the whole argue I wrote the mass was that this province of affairs was foreseeable: The Large Hadron Collider hasn’t institute prove for whatever novel particles likewise the Higgs-boson (at to the lowest degree non thence far), thence at i time particle physicists are at a loss for how to proceed. Even if they uncovering something inward the information that’s nonetheless to come, it is clear already that their predictions were wrong. Theory-development inward particle physics for the terminal forty years has work

How Nature Became Unnatural

Naturalness is an one-time idea; it dates dorsum at to the lowest degree to the 16th century too captures the intuition that a useful explanation shouldn’t rely on improbable coincidences. Typical examples for such coincidences, ofttimes referred to equally “conspiracies,” are ii seemingly independent parameters that almost cancel each other, or an extremely pocket-size yet nonzero number. Physicists believe that theories which practice non receive got such coincidences, too are natural inwards this especial sense, are to a greater extent than promising than theories that are unnatural. Naturalness has its roots inwards human experience. If you lot larn for a walk too run across a delicately balanced stack of stones, you lot conclude someone constructed it. This determination is based on your cognition that stones distributed throughout landscapes yesteryear erosion, weathering, deposition, too other geological processes aren’t in all likelihood to goal upwards on peachy piles. You