Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Under Construction
As you have probably seen from my Twitter-feed, I have made it to Waterloo, despite ash cloud and all. Perimeter Institute is, as usual, buzzing with activity. Since I have to contribute my part to the buzz, here's just a short update on the building construction. The photos from February are here. It is oddly pleasing to see reality evolve by plan, just as we've been shown in the models. It's so different from my every day life...
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Thanks for the update! I was wondering how the construction site does look like ...
ReplyDeleteCheers, Stefan
t is oddly pleasing to see reality evolve by plan, just as we've been shown in the models. It's so different from my every day life...
ReplyDeleteBut I can't imagine a half-constructed Bee!
So what's the buzz at PI these days?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Bee,
ReplyDeleteThat environment you find unfamiliar is the one I find myself to be in most of the time and I can tell you its dependent on more than the plans of its architects to have it successfully completed. Also I can say that what is common among those who care that are involved, is when it’s completed they will each express a sense of pride and ownership, even though most may not understand what will be discovered by those to be after contained within its walls. This has always had me think about the necessity of understanding in having things created, as being perhaps itself misunderstood. That is although those from the designers on up might never come to understand what will be discovered there, they still are the ones responsible for creating the environment in which it will be fostered. This would then have them as being fundamental and the physicists and their physics as being emergent:=)
Best,
Phil
Well hello, Oldershaw. Long time no hear. How are your explorations in fractility and self-similarity on varying length scales going? I can't connect to your webpage by clicking on your name, what's up with that? I'll be vacationing on Cape Code in July. Perhaps I can take an afternoon off and meet up with you and discuss your maths? How far are you from Boston? Since last we heard from you, I've put further research into QM and QFT on the backburner, and taken up Gen Rev and Thermo, which I studied in college but have since been relegated to "storage neurons" in my brain, awaiting retrieval.
ReplyDeleteQM I've explored to my satisfaction, QFT is wonderful but appears to be playing itself out like winding down a curlicue on the Mandelbrot Set. Back up people and see the whole set! Gen Rev has flaws but seems to work superbly on the grandest scales (question re same to Bee in a bit), and Thermo ("The Entropy"\ Decade"), the 150+ year old field of study, is increasingly looking to be the "unifier", or perhaps the "third leg" or "missing link" in what was once a 2-person theory race between QM and GR to describe QG. Or QTG, as I like to call it. I am but a babe in the woods in exploring T and GR atm. No worries, we have time.
Click here Robert for a wonderful discussion I am having with Phil Warnell regarding Dimensionality and our Fractal universe which you and I seem to be on at least a similar page, and by all means chime in there. I still have a hard time convincing me that galaxies, solar systems, atoms, and nuclei are all that similar, and galactic filaments and nodes and the CMB background not at all. For now.
Hi Bee,
How is John Moffat and MOG doing? I've asked you this before and you didn't respond, because I suspect you are a busy Bee. Still, John still works at Perimeter, yes? how many people does he have working on his problem, which intrigued both Einstein and Bohr in Moffat's youth?
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteSaw John yesterday on the corridor but haven't talked to him. He seems to be doing fine. I'm not terribly interested in MOND and its cousins, which is why I have nothing to say about it. Best,
B.
Hi Robert: Guess who is giving the colloquium today....
ReplyDeleteHi Phil,
ReplyDeleteThing is that most of the physics I seem to be confronted with will very likely never "emerge" anywhere but in a seminar. Best,
B.
Arun: I've been under construction from day zero and still don't have any plan... Best,
ReplyDeleteB.
It is oddly pleasing to see reality evolve by plan, just as we've been shown in the models. It's so different from my every day life...
ReplyDeleteJa, mach nur einen Plan
sei nur ein großes Licht
und mach dann noch 'nen zweiten Plan
gehn tun sie beide nicht.
- Bertolt Brecht, Dreigroschenoper
(regarding the Soviets second
"5-years-plan")
*lol*, very amusing, especially considered PI's 5 year plan, that I wrote about earlier...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI've been under construction from day zero and still don't have any plan
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the best plan of all. ;-0
"I shot an arrow into the air, and whence it landed I know not where."
Who said that?
Well, I hope Verlinde expounds on his idea of gravitons as phonons, not as point particles. That intrigues me most of all, and seems to make more sense than any other theory of "gravitons".
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ReplyDeleteHi Bee,
ReplyDeleteIf that be the case I suspect if they expanded or created an additional Black Hole Bistro that would amount to being redundant and thus counter to the laws of conservation. My question then would be, is what would then reveal as its corresponding symmetry? ;-)
Best,
Phil
They can't create a Black Hole Bistro, Phil. All information would be lost. Imagine the accounting nightmare that would ensue. :-)
ReplyDeletePI does have a Black Hole Bistro. It's basically directly behind the construction area you see in the upper photo. If I recall correctly though the kitchen and with it the bistro will be moved and expanded. I don't know if they will keep the name, but since it's quite popular I'd guess so. Best,
ReplyDeleteB.
PS: here's some photos of the BHB
ReplyDeleteI see steel! All Canadian construction must be soy-based so it does not rape the Environment, threaten fragile and endangered peoples, and can be easily recycled. One presumes PI winter furnaces are stoked with faery dust to zero their carbon footprints.
ReplyDeleteEmergent phenomena are not intrinsic or intensive. They cannot arise from perturbation theory. Because string theory can only be "solved" peturbationally, all emergent phenomena must be purged from physics.
How marvelously publishable a science can be after it throws off the shackles of empiricism!
PS: here's some photos of the BHB
ReplyDeleteHello Bee,
thank You very much for this pictures. I wanted since years
to see the place, were Bistromath
and Bistromathic Drive originated
from. :=)
Regards
Georg
BTW,
there is a story about Sears/Roebuck,
who were at the edge of ruin with
their mailorder business around
1900.
Reason was lack of systematic
planning and management of
the warehouses and so on.
One day the boss realized the
seeming disorder of a construction site
nearby, nevertheless the building was competed in time.
The storys end is, S-R engaged some managers from construction business and so they lived happily
till....
The story's end is, S-R engaged some managers from construction business and so they lived happily
ReplyDeletetill....
... House Walton of Arkansas and House Bush of Connecticut (including their Texas and Florida Carpetbagging Divisions) ruined their dreams ... and everyone else's ... except their friends (cough ...ExxonMobilHaliburtun ... uncough). Sorry.
Am I close?
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI can connect w/o a problem. Seach on "Fractal Cosmology".
When you use J = j(j+1) and retain the spin parameter (a) in the Kerr solution for the particle mass formula, you can retrodict 8 of the 10 major mass/stability peaks in the 100-1860 MeV range at the <99%> level, using very well-motivated values for j and a.
Mass formula becomes M = [sqrt{j(j+1)/a}]{674.8 MeV].
"Cherry-picking" is no longer a valid excuse for ignoring these results, nor is the "lack of statistical significance" argument.
Send me an email and I will attach a pdf of the mass/stability "histogram" to the reply
So things are going rather well.
Stop by any time.
Best,
Robert L. Oldershaw
One more thing.
ReplyDeleteCan Verlinde's Classic Comics version of General Relativity make any definitive predictions?
Or is it just in the Boltzmann Brain category of untestable rubbish?
This was bugging me this afternoon, but were you in the Alice room when Dr. Verlinde was talking with the PSI students?
ReplyDeleteHi Luke,
ReplyDeleteYes, I was the one sitting in the back, blue jeans, blue jacket, sneakers, notepad, pen. Trying not to fall asleep (still fighting the jetlag). Who were you? Say hello next time, I'm in office 303 till the end of the month. Best,
B.
Robert: Verlinde's scenario is on the best way to make predictions, check the arxiv to stay up to date. Please omit further discussions of your retrodictions on this blog. Thanks,
ReplyDeleteB.
Hi Steven,
ReplyDeleteIn respect to the Black Hole Bistro as Bee has already shown it actually exists. Yet as she also points out not much of what is proposed within physics in general currently makes it much further then the seminars. Perhaps then justifiably the Bistro could have a marketing slogan like they do for Los Vegas, which boasts what’s known there stays there:-)
Best,
Phil
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ReplyDeleteHi Bee,
ReplyDeleteSo they plan to have the Bistro moved as a result of the renovation. With the Bob room just next to it, that will prove to be a bit of a inconvenience for getting coffee before seminars or having a nice place close by to just sit and chat after. That’s the trouble with Architects at times, as although they incorporate symmetry as a key element of their craft, they often have little understanding of its function. Perhaps Noether’s work should be introduced as part of their formal education:-)
Best,
Phil
P.S. I hope they keep the floor to ceiling blackboard as a element of the new one as I always thought it to be a unique element for such a place,
Bee,
ReplyDeleteI was the one sitting to the right of Dr. Verlinde. I wasn't sure if it was you because you looked very tired.
Next time I'm at PI I'll try and say hello.