I had the pleasure of sitting and talking with a cosmological rock star for about 1 1/2 hours last week at SuperComputing '07 in Reno. 2006 Noble winner for physics (COBE) Prof. George Smoot gave one of the keynote addresses on Thursday morning. That afternoon he had an informal chat session around a table with about 5 of us at the UC Berkeley booth on the convention floor. A special treat, getting to talk cosmology with one of the luminaries in the field. We also got autographed copies of his book, "Wrinkles in Time". A most satisfying experience.
Prof. Smoot, btw, favors a multi-dimensional solution to the problem of "dark energy" and its presumed role in the recently-observed (by humans, anyhow) increase in the rate of expansion of the universe. Multi-dimensional Brane intersections, and other postulated explanations of that sort. --Doug -- Doug Roberts, RTI International [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Nov 25, 2007 5:17 PM, Gus Koehler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Bernard D'Espagnat, practicing and well know physicist, in his 2006 On > Physics and Philosophy makes the following points based on contemporary > limits that nature has imposed us via quantum mechanics: > > -- Common sense is not an adequate test to establish unquestioned validity > -- The principal of "incomplete determination of theory by experience" > creates difficulties for Pythagoras (complete mathematical theory of the > universe) because it so happens that there are 3 distinct theories, all o > f > them ground on the general quantum rules, yielding essentially the same > observational predictions, but widely differing concerning the ideas they > call forth. These theories are the "theory of the Dirac sea," "Feynman > graph theory," and "quantum field theory." > -- Locality as particles, and so forth are not the constitutive materials > of > the universe there is only a "something", a wholeness of some sort. > -- Nonseparability or nonlocality is the foundation of this wholeness > (work > by Bell and experiments by Aspect and others) > -- Objectivity language as providing a grammatical form that makes it > possible to speak of essentially contingent space- and time-localized data > as existing quite INDEPENDENT of us generates insurmountable difficulties. > -- The cop-out of saying its all "just a model", in particular the > standard > model, only results in ignoring the fact that the observed is entangled in > measurement--but such a model fails because it does not leave out the > classical requirement of objectivity or of no reference to us. > > Check it out. > > Gus > > > Gus Koehler, Ph.D. > President and Principal > Time Structures, Inc. > 1545 University Ave. > Sacramento, CA 95825 > 916-564-8683, Fax: 916-564-7895 > Cell: 916-716-1740 > www.timestructures.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf > Of steve smith > Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 11:05 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Is mathematical pattern the theory of everything? > > I'm waiting for Wolfram to weigh in.... > > Carl Tollander wrote: > > Some are sympathetic but have reservations. > > Sabine Hossenfelder: > > http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/11/theoretically-simple-exceptio > > n-of.html > > and > > Christine Dantas: > > http://egregium.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/physics-needs-independent-thi > > nkers/ > > and > > Peter Woit: > > http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=617<http://www.math.columbia.edu/%7Ewoit/wordpress/?p=617> > > and > > John Baez: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week253.html > > and > > Steinn Sigurðsson: > > http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2007/11/overly_simple_theory_of_so > > meth.php > > > > Some of the sharp-elbow folks have stronger reservations. > > Lubos Motl: > > http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/exceptionally-simple-theory-of.html > > and > > Jacques Distler: > > http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/001505.html<http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/%7Edistler/blog/archives/001505.html> > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, > unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
