Science Journalism

Some weeks ago I wrote how I was upset about an article in World of Wonders, written by the science journalist Mirko Herr. For one, I did not particularly like the article. Titled 'The World's most Dangerous Experiment',The the scientific content was vanishingly small, sensations were sold on shaky ground, the illustrations had been better used for a sci-fi movie (e.g. a 'black hole' that looked suspiciously like a solar eclipse in a pair of open hands).

But, living in the US, that's something I got used to.

What did upset me about this particular article was that I was being quoted in a context that made my words appear with exactly the opposite intention from what I had. It's like taking a sip from your Starbucks coffee (same as always) and then noticing there is plenty of caramel syrup in it (Yuck).

Okay, maybe I was just upset because I actually found the journalist was a nice guy. The nice guy wrote me an email some days later, and since then we have been in contact. He apologized for quoting me in a misleading way, and we had an interesting discussion about the problems of communicating science to the broad public.

I do not share his opinion in all points, but that's what makes the world interesting. I asked him to write a brief contribution to my blog which you find below. It seems, we also have a different opinion about what 'brief' is.

Paragraphs and bold-faces are mine.

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By Mirko Herr

First of all I want to express my gratitude towards Sabine for inviting me to write this piece about science journalism and its pitfalls. Recently Sabine criticized my work and I have to admit that this was not without reason. Scientists, journalists and the media do form a rather complicated ménage a trois. But then, all such relationships are difficult. On the other hand, they can be genuinely exciting and of the greatest importance. If only all the partners involved knew how to deal with the situation. Time and again, I have asked myself a number of questions, concerning the role of science journalism, the mistakes made by journalists and scientists, and my hopes for a bright future of our ménage. The good thing about doing this online is that you can always click on to some cartoon website once you get bored. Feel free to do so.

Unlocking the Ivory Tower - Why we need Science Journalism


Cloning, stem cell research, the Human Genome Project, global warming - these are some science news that made front page headlines all over the world in recent years. The public understands that science is a force to be reckoned with, a force that will shape the future of all of us. Also there are the fields of science that do not or never will affect our everyday life, and yet they are of great interest to the public because they provide answers to philosophical questions. I am talking about fields like cosmology or evolution. So there is a desire for all kinds of scientific news - why not let the scientists quench it? They are the experts, after all. And there is a whole lot of scientists who try to do just that. They write books for a wider public, they publish articles in Scientific American, some even host TV shows. Nonetheless, they are only a minority. Most scientists just do what they are best at: research. And they come up with fantastic results, almost on a daily basis.

Just too bad that nobody takes any notice, because the average person does not read Science or Nature. They do not even know that such magazines exist. The average person, that is my mom. She has always been a housewife in Germany, her education in the early 60’s never went beyond 8th grade. Though she sometimes wonders how the universe came into being or whether it would be possible to clone our family cat, she would never read a book by Steven Hawking or a copy of the German Scientific American. People like my mom make up the vast, vast majority of our societies and to reach them, scientists need the help of mass media. Enter the journalist. I like to compare my trade to that of an interpreter. It is our job to explain science on such a basic level that my mom will understand it. And even more, she has to enjoy reading or hearing about it. In the best case, she must feel entertained and enlightened while reading a piece of science journalism.

And I believe, that a journalist, who has to be a generalist, will rather achieve this goal than the scientist, who has to be a specialist by nature. Grasping the essential point of a study and explaining it in clear sentences without using any technical terms, that is the everyday bread of every science journalist. That is our expertise. And I think it is an absolute necessity to keep the whole public informed about what is going on in science, and not just the few who read popular science books; first of all because science is a wonderful undertaking of our global society and it is terribly exciting, secondly because science touches matters of deep moral questions like human cloning and everybody has to have a chance to come up with an informed opinion, thirdly because virtually all members of society finance science through taxes and should get some learning as a dividend.

When Proteins meet Protons – Where journalists fail


I believe that a good science journalist has to be a generalist. Well, one can not know or read everything. But while the scientist becomes more and more of a specialist, the journalist can keep an eye on a much wider field, seeing connections, that some specialist might miss, asking questions that a specialist wouldn’t ask. And once he has gathered all the information he needs, done so through extensive research, interviews and travels to the most important labs, he may sit down for a couple of weeks and write his wonderfully balanced, almost literary article. After that, he or she may enjoy a cup of tea with the mad hatter and the white rabbit.

The truth is, most journalists work with maddening deadlines, short resources and have hardly any idea what science is all about. The vast majority of my colleagues have studied languages and other humanities. They have the average scientific knowledge of a person with the average higher education background. And that knowledge is scarily scarce. Without the help of wikipedia, they will have trouble explaining the difference between proton and protein or neutron and neuron. I would even go so far as to say that about half of my colleagues do not speak enough English to do an interview in that language or read a text with a deeper understanding. Now, that is the average journalist. A journalist who tries to specialize in science ought to know a bit more about that field. But in about 70 per cent of the cases when you have a journalist at the other end of the telephone line, it will not be a real science journalist. Most of the time, it is somebody working on an article remotely related to a scientific issue and is just looking for an expert to harvest two or three decent quotes.

If lack of knowledge is one of our failures, sensationalism is the other. 30 years ago, in an age without cable TV, the Internet and a myriad of magazines, every article in a magazine, every piece of footage on TV was like a candle in the dark. Its mere existence attracted consumers. Today, a simple newspaper article is still like a candle, only one that is burning in the middle of Times Square. If one wants to be heard in today’s tempest of information, one has to be unique. Some media outlets achieve that by being absolutely impeccable in their reporting. Others achieve it just by screaming out loud. This leads to a reporting that stresses the most sensational aspects. A reporting, that is very unlike the scientific process of carefully drawn conclusions stated in a most technical language. Very often, such a reporting becomes too simplistic and absolutely not to the liking of the scientist. I do not think that such a sensationalism serves the reader or other consumers. Unfortunately, media outlets with a sensationalistic tendency are very successful. And in the media business of today, decisions are not solely made by journalists, managers have a great deal of influence, too. And they, by nature, have to focus on money. With the tempest of information still growing in strength, sensationalism will not go away, it will only get worse.

Word vs. term – Where scientists could improve

A few days ago, I read a press release with the following headline: “Long-lived magnetic fluctuations in a crystal”. It consisted of sentences like: “MnF2, the material studied by the researchers, is an antiferromagnet. In this ionic material, each Mn2+ ion carries a net spin oriented in the opposite direction from that in which its neighbors point.” Who of you wants to know more? (Well, you can, following this link). My mom wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even understand the headline. And it is the headline that catches 90 per cent of the readers. You can not possibly underestimate the importance of the headline. And “Long-lived magnetic fluctuations in a crystal” is an absolute bummer. Now this was not the original publication of the study, which was published in Science. It was a press release by the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics. I admit, a press release is not written for the general public, but for a wider public. Most of the readers of a press release are journalists, but most of them would just ignore a press release as the one cited above. I am among them. Even though I grasp the meaning of this study, it is way too far out for a popular science magazine. And even the best science journalist would have to do a complete translation of such a press release.

Most of the time, it is pretty much the same when you talk to a scientist. That is a problem that most specialists have: they find it hard to distance themselves from their technical terms. There is nothing wrong with technical terms as long as you use them while talking to fellow specialists. They are absolutely necessary to clarify details. The general public just doesn’t care for details, and therefore the journalist has to explain things using the most simple words. We would be quite happy if the scientists would meet us somewhere in the middle between lab speak and everyday language. We love the scientist who can explain his work using plain words. When Steven Hawking wrote “A short history of time”, somebody told him that every mathematical formula would cut his readership by half. The same is true with every chemical formula or every word that makes one long for a dictionary. I wish scientists would more often think of my mom when they talk to me, or maybe of their own grandma. If I need more details, more specific information, I will ask for it. And there is one sentence I am to hear in almost every interview I do, a sentence I do not particularly like: “Matters are more complicated, you can not put it that simply.” I know scientists have to worry about the criticisms they might get from colleagues. I know that you want to see coverage of all the details. And that is OK, but please give me a few decent understandable quotes that I can use. And believe me, most of the time matters are not really that complicated.

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This shall be enough, I don’t want to fill all of Sabines blog. Let me just and finally say this: I know I have made some gross generalizations in this text. There are scientists with a wonderful talent for getting their message across to the public, women and men who inspire the thoughts of millions. And there are wonderful science journalists, women and men with a deep understanding for the subjects they are writing about, with a great talent for language and simple, but sound explanations. I am striving to become one of them, yet there is still a long way to go. I hope that along the way I will learn a lot more exiting science and get in touch with many more exciting scientists. I would be glad to learn your opinion on these matters. Feel free to send me an e-mail, my address is mirkoherr(at)web(dot)de

Extra Dimensions

It was in 2000 when we started our group on extra dimensions in Frankfurt. I still remember how The-Other-Stefan called me from the Les Houches summer school. Knowing that I had been obsessed with the idea of extra dimensions for years, he told me 'Here, everyone is talking about extra dimensions. It's completely nuts!'

The following week, Horst stomped into my office with the article in Scientific American (The Universe's Unseen Dimensions, August 2000), just to find it already lying on my desk. I am not sure who put it there, it wasn't me, but apparently there was no way around reading the papers by Arkani-Hamed & Co.

I can't say I liked what I read. I liked the original Kaluza-Klein idea, but these extra dimensions had little, if anything, to do with it. Anyway, I was completely stuck with my work (work on something I found out years later had been done already in the 80ies) and thought I could give the 'modern' extra dimensions a try.

We kept telling ourselves the topic would vanish soon, and we shouldn't spent to much time on it. Instead, the idea of phenomenologically accessible extra dimensions has flourished since (in an almost scary way), and the parameters of the models are by now included in the Particle Data Group's search for physics beyond the Standard Model.

Here, I would like to briefly introduce the main concepts, together with some references, to give you an impression of what I have been working on.

For a very readable introduction on the subject to non-experts, I can recommend Lisa Randall's book 'Warped passages'.

1. Why Extra Dimensions?
2. Models With Extra Dimensions
3. Observables of Extra Dimensions
4. Further Reading

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1. Why Extra Dimensions?

My motivation to study models with extra dimensions is simple. As long as I don't know of any good reason why we live in 3+1 dimensions, the question whether our spacetime has additional dimensions is definitely worth the effort of examination. This means one has to figure out how the assumption of additional extra dimensions can be included into our current theory, the Standard Model (SM), in such a way that this is compatible with our present day observation, and then ask what observable consequences this yields.

However, we first have to explain why we don't see any of the extra dimensions in our daily live, since we rarely witness things vanish into the 5th dimension. The most common way to do this is to assume that the extra dimensions are compactified on a small radius (ADD and UXD-models). Another way is to give the extra dimensions a strong curvature, which basically makes it hard to escape into them (RS-models).

In the ADD and RS-model, we - or the particles of the SM respectively - are bound to a 3-dimensional submanifold. This submanifold is often referred to as 'our brane', whereas the whole higher dimensional spacetime is called 'the bulk'.

The setup of these brane-world models is motivated by string theory, and whenever you post a paper and forget to cite Antoniadis '90, I can picture him jumping up and down in his office, tearing out his last some hears - before he writes you a polite email demanding to be cited appropriately. Which I have done hereby.

The attractive feature of models with extra dimension is that they provide us with an useful description to predict observable effects beyond the SM. They do by no means claim to be a theory of first principles or a candidate for a grand unification! Instead, their simplified framework allows the derivation of testable results which can in turn help us to gain insights about the underlying theory.

On the other hand this means that theories with extra dimensions are not consistent on their own. E.g. they don't explain without invoking further mechanisms why which particles are bound to the brane, or how the extra dimensions are stabilized

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2. Models with Extra Dimensions

There are different ways to build a model with an extra dimensional space-time. The most common ones are:

2. a) Large Extra Dimensions

The ADD-model proposed by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali in '98 adds d extra spacelike dimensions without curvature, in general each of them compactified to the same radius. All SM particles are confined to our brane, while gravitons are allowed to propagate freely in the bulk.

• The Hierarchy Problem and New Dimensions at a Millimeter
• New Dimensions at a Millimeter to a Fermi and Superstrings at a TeV
• Phenomenology, Astrophysics and Cosmology of Theories with Sub-Millimeter Dimensions and TeV Scale Quantum Gravity
  

In four dimensions, the scale at which effects of quantum gravity are expected to become important is the Planck scale. It's large value of ~ 10¹⁶ TeV is far out of reach for future collider experiments. It is puzzeling why this scale is so much larger than all the other mass scales in the SM. This is the so-called hierarchy problem.

The higher dimensional theory comes with a higher dimensional Planck scale M_f which can be close by a TeV. The large observed value of our Planck scale is then caused by the presence of the extra dimensions: In contrast to all the other interactions, gravity dilutes into the extra dimensions. Thereby, the gravitational potential falls off faster at distances smaller than the radius of the extra dimensions. At larger distances however, the usual behaviour is recovered, but with an already weakend strength. This is shematically illustrated in the figure below.

These models thus explain why gravity is so much weaker than the other interactions (or at least reformulate it in a geometrical language).

This in turn means that at smaller distances, gravity is much stronger than what we expect from the extrapolation of the 3-dimensional force law. It will run with a different power law in the radial distance r, which is related to the number of dimensions as 1/r^d+1.

These extra dimensions are called 'large' because the radius is much larger than the inverse of the new fundamental scale. It turns out that the model with one extra dimension is incompativle with observation (the extra dimension would have about the size of the solar system). For d=2, the radius of the extra dimension can be as large as 1/10 mm. The larger the number of extra dimensions, the smaller the radius.

b) Universal Extra Dimensions

Within the model of universal extra dimensions all particles (or in some extensions, only gauge fields) can propagate in the whole higher dimensional spacetime. These extra dimensions typically have radii of ~ 10^-18 m are compactified on an orbifold to reproduce SM gauge degrees of freedom. These models come closest to the original idea of Kaluza and Klein.

• Bounds on Universal Extra Dimensions
• Collider Implications of Universal Extra Dimensions
• Probes Of Universal Extra Dimensions at Colliders
  

It is worth noting that, unlike the ADD-model, no location along the extra dimension is exeptional and thus, translational invariance holds. This means, that the momentum in direction of the extra dimensions is conserved.

c) Warped Extra Dimensions

The setting of the model from Randall and Sundrum is a 5-dimensional spacetime with
an non-factorizable, so called 'warped' geometry. Roughly spoken, when you go into the direction of the extra dimensions, all your scales will be stretched by a factor depending on the distance to our brane. The solution for the metric is found by analyzing the solution of Einstein's field equations with a constant energy density on our brane where the SM particles live. In the type I model the extra dimension is compactified, in the type II model it is infinite. The resulting metric is an AdS-Space, which makes the model particularly interesting.

• An Alternative to Compactification
• A Large Mass Hierarchy from a Small Extra Dimension

d) Split Fermions

The split fermion model is not exactly a model on its own, but it serves as a quick fix for some problems that arise within models with a lowered fundamental scale. Namely, contributions in the SM that e.g. cause the proton to decay, are usually suppressed by the large value of the Planck scale. If the Planck scale is lowered they can become quite troublesome, and would allow the proton to decay rather fast. Since - luckily - the proton seems to be very long lived, it remains to explain why these processes do not occur.

In the split fermion model, the wave-functions that correspond to the particles of the standard model, are localized around different positions in the direction of the extra dimensions.

To compute the effective coupling between these particles, and thus, the strength of the above mentioned decay modes, one has to integrate the product of these wave-functions over the extra dimension. This overlap can be tiny, even with small separations. This is not only useful to suppress higher dimensional operators (also flavor changing ones), but can also be used to explain the very different masses of the fermions.

• Hierarchies without Symmetries from Extra Dimensions
• Yukawa Hierarchies from Split Fermions in Extra Dimensions
• Split Fermions in Extra Dimensions and Exponentially Small Cross-Sections at Future Colliders
  

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3. Observables of Extra Dimension

The above mentioned models lead to a vast number of observable predictions, for high energy physics, high precision measurements and astrophysics. The current constraints on the parameters of the models can be found in the Particle Data Book.

a) Newtons Law

The most obvious experimental test for the existence of extra dimensions is a measurement of the Newtonian potential at sub-mm distances, since we have seen above that large extra dimensions predict a different power law. Cavendish-like experiments which search for deviations from the 1/r potential have been performed during the last years with increasing precision and do currently require the extra dimensions to have radii not larger than ~ 0.045 mm (which disfavors the case of two extra dimensions).

• Sub-millimeter Tests of the Gravitational Inverse-square Law
• New Experimental Limits on Macroscopic Forces Below 100 Microns
• Measuring Gravity on Small Length Scales
• Upper limits to submillimetre-range forces from extra space-time dimensions
• Short-Range Searches for Non-Newtonian Gravity

b) KK-Excitations

Periodic boundary conditions, as caused by compactification, lead to geometrically quantized momenta in the direction of the extra dimensions. This means the momentum in the extra dimension can only come in discrete steps. The step-size is the inverse of the radius. A particle with non-zero momentum in the extra dimension will appear to have less momentum left for the usual dimensions. It will thus behave on our brane as if it had an additional mass.

A particle that is allowed to enter the extra dimensions will therefore come with a whole 'tower' of momenta that on our brane appear like copies of the same particle with different masses. These so-called KK-excitations of the particles can in principle be produced in scattering experiments, if the energy is high enough to provide enough momentum.

• TeV Strings and Collider Probes of Large Extra Dimensions
• Particle Physics Probes Of Extra Spacetime Dimensions
• Probes Of Universal Extra Dimensions at Colliders
• On Kaluza-Klein States from Large Extra Dimensions

c) Real and Virtual Graviton Production

In the ADD-model the graviton will have a tower of KK-excitations, and since the radii of the dimensions are large, the mass spacing will be very small. It takes a whole lot of these flimsy gravitons to add up to an observable contribution. Typically, these contributions become comparable to SM-processes if the total energy of a collision reaches the new fundamental scale.

Real graviton production would lead to an apparent loss of energy, since the graviton does not lead to a signal in the detector. Also, virtual exchange of gravitons can take place, which modifies predictions for processes made within the SM.

d) Black Hole Production

As we have seen, in the ADD-model gravity on distances significantly smaller than the radius of the extra dimension, is much stronger than in the usual three-dimensional scenario. The horizon of a black hole is the surface at which photons can no longer escape the gravitational pull. In the presence of extra dimensions, this happens at a much larger distance. Black holes can therefore be produced easier. The density that is needed to cause a gravitational collapse is such that it can be reached at future colliders.

Whenever two colliding particles with sufficiently high energy come closer together than the horizon radius of their total energy, the system will collapse and cause a black hole. One can estimate the number of black holes that would be produced at the LHC. For M_f ~ 1TeV one finds about 1 black hole per second.

These black holes would not be stable. Due to quantum effects, they undergo Hawking evaporation with a very high temperature (~ 300 GeV ~ 10¹⁵ K) and decay before they reach the detector. They will however give a very distinct signature.

• Black Holes in Theories with Large Extra Dimensions: a Review
• What Black Holes Can Teach Us
• Black hole and brane production in TeV gravity: A review
• Black Holes at Future Colliders and Beyond - a Review
  

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4. Further Reading

4 a) Reviews and Lectures

• Cargese Lectures on Extra Dimensions
  Author: R. Rattazzi
• TASI 2004 Lectures on the Phenomenology of Extra Dimensions
  Author: Graham D. Kribs
• An Introduction to Extra Dimensions
  Author: Abdel Pérez-Lorenzana
• TASI Lectures on Extra Dimensions and Branes
  Author: Csaba Csaki
• Physics of Extra Dimensions
  Author: Rula Tabbash

b) Brief Intros

• Introduction to extra dimensions
  Author: M. Quiros
• Gravity and Large Extra Dimensions
  Authors: V H Satheesh Kumar, P K Suresh
• Review on Extra Dimensions from the Particla Data Booklet
  Authors: G.F. Giudice and J.D.Wells
  

c) Links

• Greg Landsberg: Searching for Extra Dimensions
• John Terning: Extra Dimensions
• Symmetry Magazine: The Search For Extra Dimensions
• Physicsl Review Focus: In Search of Hidden Dimensions
• Spacedaily: In Search Of Extra Dimensions
• Physicsweb: The search for extra dimensions
• Chicago Chronicle: Chicago physicists believe extra dimensions exist as they search for more clues
• The Official String Theory Web Site: Looking for Extra Dimensions
• The Elegant Universe: Imagining Other Dimensions
• Quasar: New Dimensions at LHC

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Will be updated from time to time. I invite you to send me your links or references.

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TAGS: PHYSICS, SCIENCE

Stupid Title List

Today, the arxiv gave me a new candidate for my Stupid Title List. Since we have been listing the last some days, here is another list. If you have futher suggestions, let me know :-)

1. 10 = 6 + 4
   Author: Frank Tony Smith
   arXiv: hep-th/9908205
   
2. log(M_Pl/m_3/2)
   Authors: Oscar Loaiza-Brito, Johannes Martin, Hans Peter Nilles, Michael Ratz
   arXiv: hep-th/0509158


3. Brane Big-Bang Brought by Bulk Bubble
   Authors: Uchida Gen, Akihiro Ishibashi, Takahiro Tanaka
   Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D66 (2002) 023519
   arXiv: hep-th/0110286


4. The axis of evil
   Authors: Kate Land, Joao Magueijo
   arXiv: astro-ph/0502237
   Journal-ref: Phys.Rev.Lett. 95 (2005) 071301


5. Local Pancake Defeats Axis of Evil
   Authors: Chris Vale
   arXiv: astro-ph/0509039


6. Why Eppley and Hannah's Experiment Isn't
   Author: James Mattingly
   arXiv: gr-qc/0601127


7. A Fly in the SOUP
   Authors: R. Holman, L. Mersini-Houghton
   arXiv: hep-th/0511112


8. Waking the Colored Plasma
   Authors: Jörg Ruppert, Berndt Müller
   arXiv: hep-ph/0503158
   
9. Much ado about nothing: a treatise on empty and not-so-empty spacetimes
   Authors: Damien Martin
   arXiv:gr-qc/0607022


10. Unhiggsing the del Pezzo
    Authors: Bo Feng, Sebastian Franco, Amihay Hanany, Yang-Hui He
    arXiv: hep-th/0209228


11. The Sybils' Advice on Charm (and tau Leptons)
    Authors: I.I. Bigi
    arXiv: hep-ph/0604038


12. X & Y
    Authors: L. Maiani, F. Piccinini, A.D. Polosa, V. Riquer
    arXiv: hep-ph/0512082
    
13. New Regions for a Chameleon to Hide
    Authors: Baruch Feldman, Ann E. Nelson
    arXiv: hep-ph/0603057
    
14. Cosmological Supersymmetry Breaking and the Power of the Pentagon: A Model of Low Energy Particle Physics
    Author: T. Banks
    arXiv: hep-ph/0510159
    
15. Remodeling the Pentagon After the Events of 2/23/06
    Authors: T. Banks
    arXiv: hep-ph/0606313
    
16. Cosmic Strings - Dead Again?
    Author: Mark Hindmarsh
    arXiv: hep-ph/9806469


17. Brane New World
    Authors: S.W. Hawking, T. Hertog, H.S. Reall
    Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D62 (2000) 043501
    arXiv: hep-th/0003052


18. Cloudshine: New Light on Dark Clouds
    Authors: Jonathan B. Foster, Alyssa A. Goodman
    Journal-ref: Phys.Rev. D62 (2000) 043501
    arXiv: astro-ph/0510624


19. The Skyrmion strikes back: baryons and a new large N_c limit
    Authors: Aleksey Cherman, Thomas D. Cohen
    arXiv: hep-th/0607028
    
20. How Bob Laughlin Tamed the Giant Graviton from Taub-NUT space
    Authors: B.A.Bernevig, J. Brodie, L. Susskind, N. Toumbas
    Journal-ref: JHEP 0102 (2001) 003
    arXiv: hep-th/0010105


21. The Battle of Albuera, the FC Liverpool and the Standard Model
    Authors: I.I. Bigi
    arXiv: hep-ph/0603087


22. Nutty Bubbles
    Authors: A.M. Ghezelbash, R.B. Mann
    Journal-ref: JHEP 0209 (2002) 045
    arXiv: hep-th/0207123


23. Nuttier Bubbles
    Authors: Dumitru Astefanesei, Robert B. Mann, Cristian Stelea
    Journal-ref: JHEP 0601 (2006) 043
    arXiv: hep-th/0508162


24. Deconstructing Noncommutativity with a Giant Fuzzy Moose
    Authors: Allan Adams, Michal Fabinger
    Journal-ref: JHEP 0204 (2002) 006
    arXiv: hep-th/0111079


25. Escape From The Menace Of The Giant Wormholes
    Authors: Sidney R. Coleman, Ki-Myeong Lee
    Journal-ref: Phys. Lett. B 221:242,1989


26. Superbanana Orbits in Stellarator Geometries
    Authors: J. A. Derr, J. L. Shohet
    Journal-ref: Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 1730–1733 (1979)


27. The mother of all protocols: Restructuring quantum information's family tree
    Authors: Anura Abeyesinghe, Igor Devetak, Patrick Hayden, Andreas Winter
    arXiv: quant-ph/0606225


28. Walking in the SU(N)
    Authors: Dennis D. Dietrich, Francesco Sannino
    arXiv: hep-ph/0611341


29. Higgs Pain? Take a Preon!
    Authors: J.-J. Dugne, S. Fredriksson, J. Hansson, E. Predazzi
    arXiv: hep-ph/9709227


30. The Matrix Reloaded - on the Dark Energy Seesaw
    Authors: Kari Enqvist, Steen Hannestad, Martin S. Sloth
    arXiv: hep-ph/0702236


31. A New Dimension Hidden in the Shadow of a Wall
    Author: Nemanja Kaloper
    arXiv: hep-th/0702206


32. Decapitating Tadpoles
    Authors: Allan Adams, John McGreevy, Eva Silverstein
    arXiv: hep-th/0209226

Please note that I have not read most of the above papers, and I am not judging on the scientific content of these works.

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Will be updated from time to time. Last update: Feb 28th 2007

Bra-Cat

(Hi Thomas, I hope this answers the question why I was googling women's underwear during the parallel session... You see, it was for purely scientific reasons.)

Top 5 / Top 50 Science Blogs

Lists seem to be very much en vogue these days: After Bee's Top Ten Lists of unsolved questions in theoretical physics and results in string theory and LQG, this week's edition of Nature features a list of top 5 science blogs. In the news section, the top 5 list there is even expanded to a top 50 list

According to Nature's rating method, which is based on Technorati's Blog Finder ranking, cosmicvariance is the top 4 science blog, with a global ranking as the 2,174th blog.

I did not quite expect backreaction to appear on the lists, even more so since it was not registered at technorati until 10 minutes ago. However, I was puzzled first that neither Lubos Motl's nor Peter Woit's blog did make it among the top 50 blogs. But then I realised that it was not the fault of their technorati ranking. Somehow the editors of Nature seem not to count them as science blogs...

A modern Stonehenge

It was not in my first summer in Frankfurt that one evening in late June, just before sunset, I made a quite stunning observation: When walking home from the old physics institute, I saw, just by chance, a very remarkable shadow, which was cast by the low sun onto one of the bank towers in downtown Frankfurt. The shape of this shadow puzzled me. Then, I realised that it was cast by the tower of the Marriott hotel, a building with a very characteristic combination of three tall wings with different heights. I was fascinated, and stayed where I was, just watching the shadow wandering along the front of the bank tower. Before the shadow could leave this screen, the sun had disappeared below the horizon.

That was amazing. It seemed that just by some urbanistic coincidence, the shadow of the Marriott building could be used to indicate remarkably well the time of the summer solstice: Only around this time of the year, sunset is far enough in the Northwest, so that the shadow can reach the bank tower. Or was there a plan? Anyway, I felt some kind of archaic awe in view of this spectacle of nature.

Since that evening, I have tried to spot this event at least once each summer. Of course, the shadow appears on the bank tower not only at the exact day of the solstice, but during about three weeks around the longest day. However, I am convinced that it could be used easily to establish a calendar exact within a few days.

Last Monday was a very bright, sunny evening, and I decided to have my annual look at the spectacle, and to try to document it on photos. Sunset at the co-ordinates of Frankfurt (50.12 North, 8.68 East) is calculated by this JavaScript Sun Table Calculator to be at 21:38 MESZ (daylight savings time - 9:38 pm) on the 3rd of July. However, due to the range of the Taunus hills in the Northwest, it actually occurs 20 Minutes earlier than that, at about 21:20. At that time, the sun's altitude at is 1.4 degrees, and its azimuth is 305.3 degrees, in contrast to the nominal 308.7 degrees at sunset, which is calculated for the standard altitude at sunset of -0.83 degrees.

This azimuth is indeed in complete agreement with the angle that can be extracted from Frankfurt city maps:



Here, the upper left mark indicates the Marriott building, the lower right mark the location of the bank tower, at a distance of about 800 meters or half a mile. The line shows the direction of the shadow at sunset, with an azimuth of 306 degrees.

When I came home shortly after 8 pm on monday, I could witness another nice shadow display: About one hour before sunset, the Frankfurt Messeturm casts its characteristic pencil-shaped shadow on the very same bank tower that later shows the Marriott shadow:



You may recognise the street: the location of the photo is quite exactly where Bee was swaying the German colours two weeks ago.

Finally, one hour later, there it was, the spectacle of the Marriott shadow at midsummer:







With the last rays of sunlight, the complete shadow of the Marriott building seemed to fit just on the front of the bank tower.

Then, it was gone, together with the sun.

Sometimes, one hears the regret that living in a big city implies the loss of all authentic experience of nature. Fundamental awareness of the succession of seasons, for example, which was so important to our ancestors who built places like Stonehenge to fix these observations, would be forgotten in modern urban environments. I would argue that the contrary is true: Big cities with their skyscrapers and tall buildings offer manifold landmarks that allow to track the characteristic motion of the sun over the sky in the course of the year. Such events as the Marriott shadow may be overlooked easily in busy every-day city life, and, as it was the case for me, you may need some chance to spot them in the first place. But they are there.

You just have to open your eyes.

Top Ten

My invitation list to the wedding was a disaster. I listed several people twice with different nicknames, paired friends with partners they never had, and could neither recall the family names of my aunts, nor where they live. I listed my seat neighbor from 8th class, but forgot my brother-in-law. I gave up writing shopping lists. What is on them I don't forget anyhow, but instead I forget the list, my husband (I'm practising) finds it some weeks later, and then buys stuff we don't need.

Last year I had the insight that my talks desperately need improvement, and attempted to list all the important things I should keep in might when I speak in front of people. After chewing a pen for a very long time, what I finally wrote was 'Breathe Normally'. I consider this to be a successful list. It's pinned to the wall in my office.

However, as Marcus has tried to communicate to me repeatedly, lists pretend structured thought. This together with the recent posts by Christine about the top 10 lists for String Theory (ST) and Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG), inspired me to write down my own top 10 list of unsolved questions in physics. For completeness I will also briefly summarize Christine's lists, which I felt free to shorten and reinterpret to suit my needs. While writing this post, I further came across several more or less related links, that you also find below.

Since I am neither a string theorist nor working on LQG, this is kind of an agnostic outside view, and should be read as such.

• My Top Ten
• String Theory Top Ten
• Loop Quantum Gravity Top Ten
• More Lists
• Conclusions
• Bottomline

---

My Top 10
Unsolved Questions in Theoretical Physics

1) How can the apparent disagreement between general relativity (GR) and quantum gravity be resolved? Does it require to quantize gravity? If so, how? If not, see 2 and 3.

2) Do black holes destroy information? If not, what happens to the matter that collapses to a black hole?

3) Are there really singularities in GR (inside black holes/big bang)? If so, how can we understand what happens there? If not, how are they avoided?

4) How can we explain the data (supernovae, WMAP) which seems to indicate that the universe is filled with dark energy. Is there really dark energy? If so, what is it? Why does it become important just now (coincidence problem)?

5) How can we understand the rotation curves of galaxies, and the too large sizes of voids between galaxies. Does dark matter exist? If so, what is it made of?

6) What happened in the very early stages of the universe? How can we solve the horizon/flatness/homogeneity problem? Did inflation really take place? If so, what is the inflaton? How does electroweak symmetry breaking work? Where does the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry come from?

7) Why do we experience 3+1 dimensions? Are there extra dimensions? If so, why haven't we yet noticed them?

8) Are the electroweak and strong interaction unified at high energies? If so, are the currently known particles of the standard model (SM) elementary? Are there more yet unobserved particles? Why are the parameters of the SM what they are and are they in yet unknown ways related to each other (or are they related to 1. or 6.?). Why are the gauge groups of the SM what they are?

9) Can we understand quantization?

10) What causes particles to have masses and why are these so much smaller than the Planck mass (and hence the gravitational interaction so weak, alias the hierarchy problem)?

I want to add that imo solving 3 will solve 2, and 9 will help with 1.

---

String Theory Top 10

This is a free interpretation of Lubos' list. For more details, references and links, please look up his post.

ST 1) Absence of free non-dynamical continuous dimensionless parameters in the underlying equations.

ST 2) Microscopic calculation of entropy of black holes and their other thermodynamical properties.

ST 3) The equivalence between conformal field theories and quantum gravity in anti de Sitter space, i.e. AdS/CFT correspondence.

ST 4) Unity of all consistent theories of quantum gravity in the maximal dimensions.

ST 5) Natural embedding of realistic vacua with all desirable features, SM spectrum gauge groups, SUSY, grand unification, neutrino masses, solutions to numerous particle physics problems within the simplest N=1 vacua of string theory.

ST 6) Matrix models and Matrix theory as alternative descriptions of second-quantized systems without second quantization, including the description of more complicated backgrounds such as 10D type IIA.

ST 7) Mirror symmetry and physical methods to solve difficult questions in algebraic geometry, and geometrization of particle physics processes such as gaugino condensation

ST 8) Detailed proofs that topology can change and description how it precisely occurs.

ST 9) Framework that generates helpful new concepts and ideas that might be relevant in bottom-up phenomenology even without the exact rules of string theory such as large extra dimensions, warped dimensions, application of quiver theories (deconstruction etc.), and others.

ST 10) Other implications for mathematics as encoded in topological string theory, a subsector of the full string theory

ST 11) Other mechanisms showing the emergent character of space, other dualities such as K3-heterotic, new transitions, new massless states [...]

ST 12) The existence of the landscape, a large enough set of metastable solutions that the cosmological constant can adjust to a value small enough as to allow organized structures

---

LQG Top 10

For details and references, look up Lee Smolin's paper or Christine's list. You also find extensive comments on that list at Lubos' post.

LQG 1) The kinematical Hilbert space has been rigorously constructed. The Hilbert space of spatially diffeomorphism invariant (Hdiffeo) and gauge invariant states of a gauge field on a manifold Sigma has an orthonormal basis whose elements are in one to one correspondence with the diffeomorphism equivalence classes of embeddings of spin network into Sigma.

LQG 2) Certain spatially diffeomorphism invariant observables have been constructed. The spectra have been computed. The area and volume operators can be promoted to genuine physical observables, by gauge fixing the time gauge so that at least locally time is measured by a physical field.

LQG 3) Loop quantum gravity leads to a detailed microscopic picture of the quantum geometry of a black hole or cosmological horizon.

LQG 4) Among the operators that have been constructed and found to be finite on Hdiffeo is the Hamiltonian constrain. Not only can the Wheeler deWitt equation be precisely defined, it can be solved exactly. Several infinite sets of solutions have been constructed, as certain superpositions of the spin network basis states, for all values of the cosmological constant.

LQG 5) Evolution amplitudes corresponding to the quantization of the Einstein equations in 3 + 1 dimensions, are known precisely for vanishing and non-vanishing values of the cosmological constant, and for both the Euclidean and Lorentzian theories.

LQG 6) Spin foam models with matter have been extensively studied in 2+1 dimensions. At least in 2 + 1 dimensions the scattering of matter coupled to quantum gravity is described by a version of deformed special relativity.

LQG 7) Coupling to all the standard forms of matter fields are understood, including gauge fields, spinors, scalars and higher p-form gauge fields.

LQG 8) Spin foam models appropriate for Lorentzian quantum gravity, called causal spin foams, have quantum analogues of all the basic features of general relativistic spacetimes. These include dynamically generated causal structure, light cones and a discrete analogue of multifingered time.

LQG 9) For the case of non-vanishing cosmological constant, of either sign, there is an exact physical state, called the Kodama state, which is an exact solution to all of the quantum constraint equations, whose semiclassical limit exists. By studying excitations of these states one reproduces conventional quantum field theory, as well corrections to it which may be compared with experiment.

LQG 10) The inverse cosmological constant turns out to be quantized in integral units, so that k = 6pi/G is an integer.

---

More Lists

You find a summary of unsolved problems in theoretical physics at Wikipedia

• Wikipedia

including problems I have never heard of, like the Corona heating problem.

Then there is the

• Top 10 list from the Strings 2000 conference

which you also find in this paper.

For a refreshingly different list see N. David Mermin's article on this:

• What's Wrong With These Questions?
  

The best list I came across, with plenty of references and explanations, is the one by John Baez

• Open Questions in Physics

I also recommend Warren Siegel's view on the

• Top 10 String Theory Questions
  

---

Conclusions

First, I notice that both ST and LQG claim to be a solution to 1.

LQG 1,2,4,5,7,8 and ST 5,6,7,8,10,11 deal with the theories themselves and do not address any of my problems.

Both (ST 2, LQG 3) also claim to be crucial regarding the understanding of black hole evaporation (2). If one of both has successfully explained what happens to the matter that plunges into the black hole, the good news hasn't yet reached me.

I promoted Joe Polchinski's point about the minimalness of free parameters in ST to ST 1, because for me it is the most attractive feature. Maybe then someone could please derive the parameters of the SM from that underlying equation and address point 8?

AdS/CFT (ST 2) is nice, but to my eyes it relates two things that don't say anything about 1-10. However, it is certainly useful to occupy hundreds of postdocs.

ST 4 seems to me a very bold claim, since nobody has ever shown me what a consistent theory of quantum gravity looks like.

LQG 2 addresses point 3.

ST 12 does not explain anything.

LQG 9 and 10 are interesting, but I don't see how they help with my unsolved questions.

ST 9 and LQG 6 allow to examine phenomenological implications, which could in turn help us to learn something about the structure of the underlying theory. LQG 9 in principle sounds nice, but there seems to be plenty of disagreement around it. One way or the other, it doesn't help with 1-10.

Finally, notice how carefully I avoided to call the above ST and LQG points 'results'.

I think this is enough structured thought for today. I am afraid I have successfully depressed myself.

---

Bottomline

In case of a sudden loss of brain pressure, intriguing tasks will drop down directly in front of you. Pull task towards you, tighten strap around your head. BREATHE NORMALLY.

Wedding Photos

Very many thanks to all those who made our wedding day so enjoyable.

Thanks for not stomping on the train, for not hijacking the bride, and for teaching my husband that I never intended to become chancellor.

As promised, we put some of the photos online here.

You find more in this folder.

Very special thanks also to our best man and woman for signing in the right places.

And to the brothers for taking care of the organization.

And to the crew from Hotel am Rosenberg for the excellent buffet and the service.

---

Update July 9th: Much much more photos

I still can't believe I wore that dress a whole day!

Gravity's Relentless Pull

Have fun:

Gravity's Relentless Pull

An interactive, multimedia website about black holes for Education and Public Outreach

Authors: Roeland P. van der Marel (STScI), David Schaller (EduWeb), Gijs Verdoes Kleijn (Groningen Univ.)

astro-ph/0606601
We have created a website, called "Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull", which explains the physics and astronomy of black holes for a general audience. The site emphasizes user participation and is rich in animations and astronomical imagery. It won the top prize of the 2005 Pirelli INTERNETional Awards competition for the best communication of science and technology using the internet. This article provides a brief overview of the site. The site starts with an opening animation that introduces the basic concept of a black hole. The user is then invited to embark on a journey from a backyard view of the night sky to a personal encounter with a singularity. This journey proceeds through three modules, which allow the user to: find black holes in the night sky; travel to a black hole in an animated starship; and explore a black hole from up close. There are also five "experiments" that allow the user to: create a black hole; orbit around a black hole; weigh a black hole; drop a clock into a black hole; or fall into a black hole. The modules and experiments offer goal-based scenarios tailored for novices and children. The site also contains an encyclopedia of frequently asked questions and a detailed glossary that are targeted more at experts and adults. The overall result is a website where scientific knowledge, learning theory, and fun converge. Despite its focus on black holes, the site also teaches many other concepts of physics, astronomy and scientific thought. The site aims to instill an appreciation for learning and an interest in science, especially in the younger users. It can be used as an aid in teaching introductory astronomy at the undergraduate level.

Science and Democracy II

Concerning the nature of men, my friends know me as a very optimistic and patient person. So, here is the continuation of my earlier post on

• Science and Democracy

You also find an interesting, and remarkably reasonable, discussion at CV on Sean's post about Peter Woit's book and Lee Smolin's (upcoming) book

• The String Theory Backlash

---

1. Disclaimer
2. Why now?
3. My Concerns
4. What now?

---

1. Disclaimer

I have to admit that I am not entirely happy about the way I was dragged into the discussion by Lubos, who concluded, based on a comment I made on his blog, that what I suggested would make any country 'scientifically inferior' and 'much like the Nazi Germany'.

Though the question of democracy in science is a topic I have annoyed my friends and colleagues with since at least my MS, I can't give you a working proposal. What I try to advocate is simply that we need a reasonable discussion how science in the 21st century works best. It is probably because of the books by Peter Woit (Subtitle: The failure of String Theory...) and Lee Smolin (Subtitle: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science,...) that the present discussion returns again and again (and again) towards the string theory community, and the group theory of string theorists.

Therefore, I want to start by saying that the reason for me being concerned about democracy in science was and is not the string theory community.

Instead, the reason for me becoming concerned was that I (and many in my generation) felt that research funding in Germany was severely dominated by nuclear physics and (considerably older) nuclear physicists. Generally, it was easy to continue ongoing projects, almost irrespective of outcome and prospect, whereas new research projects were very hard to establish.

Side remark:

I should add that the situation has improved since, even though there is lots left to do. I would attribute that to the sad fact that many of those young researchers who wanted to something new (e.g. physics beyond the standard model) went to the US. This problem was realized - maybe too late.
However, taking the US as fashion guide is not a solution, neither in theoretical physics, nor in any other field. After some years in the US, I have the impression that the problem here is extreme in other ways. Where Europe tends to be too conservative, in the US hot topics keep coming and going, and the challenge of the game is to get on and off board fast enough.

The reason for me still being concerned also is not string theory, but the general question of whether our community has appropriately adjusted to the demands of the modern world.

So, this post is not about string theory.

In a comment over at Cosmic Variance, Eugene Stefanovich expressed this more clearly than I could ever have done:

Eugene Stefanovich on Jun 20th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
"Dear string theorists,

[...]
Please understand that these are not deeds of some evil antistringy types like Woit or Smolin. In the absence of deliverables, sooner or later the field would come to the same point even if Peter and Lee didn't write their books and blogs.[...] they are just messengers of the inevitable change. Please appreciate the fact that the message was delivered early and you have some time to make a graceful exit out of this situation. Don't shoot the messengers."

---

2. Why now?

As I pointed out in my earlier post, I think the present perception of the so-called-crisis in theoretical physics is not surprising. It is due to the changes that research has undergone during the last decades:

• The increasing amount of people working together in larger groups
• The large output of publications (papers as well as books, including popular science books)
• The long time the education takes until you can contribute to the front of research
• Or maybe just the fact that it takes only seconds to send an email - or to write a silly comment on a blog.

Then there are also the changes in the society that we are a part of, it's demands on scientists, and it's notion of progress. Money, power and being famous have replaced ancient values like wisdom and tranquility. These changes have not been accompanied by appropriate changes in the administration of our communities research.

But whether we like it or not, these changes have taken place.

---

3. My concerns

A phrase that has been used by Sean as well as by Lubos is the 'free market' of ideas which compete among each other until it is clear which one is the fittest and which survives.

But where do the ideas come from, and how is the 'freedom' of their competition guaranteed?

Always being the optimist, I actually agree that some self-regulating mechanism will eventually set in, and the so-called-crisis will be replaced by a so-called-revolution. It might however take quite some detours before this self-regulation sets in. Waiting for a market to collapse costs time, is a waste of effort, and money. Not to mention, that it is frustrating. It could very well be that the present discussion about string theory is such a case of delayed collapse, making it a prime example to analyze the failure of the present regulating process (or its absence).

Side remark:
To my eyes, the focus on string theory is a dominating topic mostly in the US-part of the community. I can't avoid having the impression that the quarrel strings/loops could well be translated into US/Canada. When I made my MS in Germany (in 2000), string theory was not at all a dominating topic in any regard, and it still isn't. I recall it was considered to be 'breadless' (brotlos) and detached from reality. A lecture on string theory held at my university was mostly attended by mathematicians. Around the same time, the maths department had seminars on Quantum Gravity about the Ashtekar formalism. This also was very suspicious for the physicists, simply because the mathematicians liked it (physicists and mathematicians hardly spoke to each other, as far as I know, they still don't).
Meanwhile, I was sitting among nuclear physicists with the reality constraint to do 'butter-and-bread' physics, and sneaked out to the maths seminars every now and then, before we set up our group on LXDs. At latest by the time the RS model came up (98) it seemed pretty clear that the string-community was going to be deflated. It is surprising for me that it took from 98 until now to happen.

I found another comment from someone who apparently shared this impression:

EU on Jun 19th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
"here in Europe the topic "failure of string theory?" is informally discussed since 8 years at least. Discussing this topic turned out to be much less dangerous than what I was alerted. Although a few string theorists prefer avoiding discussing this issue, most string theorists agree with the main points. The ones that successfully moved towards less stringy physics didn't kill their academic career."

In the comments to my previous post, I have been taught that Capitalism is an example how the free market works. However, the economical system needs a political counterbalance to guarantee the freedom, and the fairness of competition.

"What drives real progress of the society - and what was necessary for you to write your communist utopias today - has always been the free market of ideas and products. Exactly the things that you want to attack, deny, and abandon.

Best wishes
Lubos"

The reason why most political utopias fail is that they require an idealized, utopian type of humans, or maybe just inhuman humans.

E.g. Utopia - Thomas Morus, Christianopolis - Johann Valentin Andrea, The City of The Sun - Thomasso Campanella, The New Atlantis -Francis Bacon, The Law of Freedom - Gerrard Winstanley, Code of Nature - Morelly, The Theory of the Four Movements - Charles Fouriers, Travels in Icaria - Eitenne Cabet, Pictures of the Socialistic Future - Eugen Richter, The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin, and yes, I admit that I read them all.

The ideal scientist is a seeker for truth, driven by his love for science, and not by the distribution of research grants. Ideally, he or she follows the passion to understand nature, ideas that are compelling, beautiful, or otherwise just fascinating.

Most of those who have worked in theoretical physics know that in practice researchers are not entirely logical in their believes and convictions. At least I am sometimes quite irrational and stubborn. Sooner or later however, evidence or mathematical proof should sort out the crap. This process has worked for centuries, and it did so fairly well. In a certain sense this is natural selection -- no matter if achieved with or without method.

But the availability and quality of positions does without doubt influence people who work, or want to work, in theoretical physics.

a) The Hierarchy Problem:

For example let us have a look at an average non-ideal postdoctoral researcher in the 21st century. Being in an early stage of his education (meaning, less than 10 years after his MS), and due to the complexity of modern research, he is unlikely to have an overview on the whole field of theoretical physics. He might have his own ideas for research projects, but he needs a job. So, he looks for a field that seems interesting to him, and hopefully also has available positions. Let's assume he is lucky and gets a position.

If his supervisor tells him he wants him to investigate the stability of higher dimensional bumpy thingees in 7 dimension, will he say: "Uhm, well, we don't even know there are extra dimensions, how they are stabilized, or whether there are black holes in these extra dimensions. And, actually, I am not so into thingees. I'd rather think about why we live in 3+1 dimension?"

If his supervisor tells him to run code alpha-beta-pi with the k-factor set to 2.8, to leave out the results that don't fit the data and just keep those which do, because publications are needed for the grant a whole group is paid of. Will he say "I'd rather spend the next 10 years trying to find an analytical approach to non-perturbative QCD. I will probably fail, but thanks for paying me meanwhile."

He probably wouldn't.

He will of course have in mind to work for his employer for some time, but eventually to come back to his own ideas. After some years. Or after the next position. Or after that. Or after his first evaluation. Or after that.

I know many physicists, very many, who think so.

I know many physicists, who tell me they would rather work on something else than they do. Some have their own ideas, unfinished drafts in a drawer, some would prefer other fields which lack funding. Most feel the constant pressure to produce output in a fashionable field.

For fairness I should add that almost all of them are under the age of 40. Those I know older than that seem to be constantly busy with lectures, administration, giving interviews, or writing books. (Forgot to mention, some of them have a life as well).

Okay, I crudely exaggerate: please don't send me your list of exceptions, I am aware they exist. I hope you get the point.

This is what concerns me most: the large detour. The economical pressure on young researchers and the resulting conformity. The waste of time. The waste of ideas. Even though I don't like to hear it, it's a fact that the human brain has it's best time in the early to mid twenties. Why do we waste these best years?

Lee Smolin on Jun 22nd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
"[...]
Few think about these questions long and hard enough to get anywhere before the next “hot topic” takes everyone’s attention away.

This was a very productive style of research when high energy theory was driven by many new experimental results but it has clearly failed over the last 30 years to go beyond the standard model. [..]"

However, I also want to point out that guidance by a supervisor is one of the best ways to learn science. Some months ago, Petr Haijeck wrote to me in an email (and I hope he excuses that I cite it here):

"Of course, one could object that young people wishing to learn a craft are to serve for the first time their masters similarly as Tizian had to ground colours for Bellini. There is also something true in that. I think that there should be some equilibrium, but I do not know, how this could be achieved."

Neither do I. But I do think that the situation as it is now is not optimal. And that it can be improved.

b) The Backlash Problem

There is no point in switching from one extreme to the other, and repeating the same mistakes again and again. This is exactly what is likely to happen if we don't figure out what goes wrong, and how to avoid it in the future. I can already notice that there is a sometimes quite violent demand for instant falsifiability of theories, for closeness to experiment, etc.

I don't think pushing this too extreme is a good solution either. Phenomenological models might be more applied, but in some regards it's questionable what is there to learn from them. Just tuning some extra parameters to describe a data set is not what I think 'understanding' means.

Peter Woit on Jun 21st, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Steuard, [...]
I strongly disagree with your idea that the answer to overhyping string theory is to overhype other ideas. The respect that the public has for science is based on the fact that scientists have been able to sort out what is true about the world and what isn’t. If we decide that upholding standard scientific norms about this is less important than generating enthusiasm for what we do, we will ultimately destroy our credibility and turn science into science fiction, a subject which lots of people are enthusiastic about, but is very different indeed.

c) The Selection Problem:

Besides the above hierarchy and backlash problem, there are the apparent weaknesses in the selection process. Hiring decisions are currently in a non-negligible manner based on criteria like

• Top-ranking university were the PhD was obtained
• Renowned supervisors and letters from them
• Numbers of publications in high-impact journals
• Famous co-authors on these publications (which basically guarantees a high cite-index)
• Or in generally: relations to influential people.

Taken together, this means also that the land of origin is an important factor. It also implies that it is complicated, if not impossible, to change the field after the PhD, because you will know nobody in the new field, have no connections, no letters, no publications anybody will know of. You are nobody, you have to start all over. This makes interdisciplinary work almost impossible, amplifies the specialization and incest in sub-fields.

A part of this problem is the quality of peer reviewed papers, i.e. the question in how far the publication list, or cite-index, actually is a measure for scientific excellence. However, though this is an important issue, taken alone, it won't solve the problem.

---

4. What now?

It is pretty obvious, isn't it? After all, we are scientists and know how to analyze problems. Here are my propositions:

1. Formulate goals of research in theoretical physics.
   
   These are not static goals, but are necessarily influenced by sociological questions like Where do we come from?, What are we made of? etc. Questions that in one way or the other were the reasons why we studied physics in the first place, and we should not loose them out of sight.
   
   
2. Formulate ways to best reach above goals by supporting researchers.
   
   
   • a) How:
     
     This means not only positions, but also the quality of available positions (e.g. contract length), technical support and equipment of institutions, libraries etc. One major point that is often neglected are grants for international cooperation (for the US-citizens, with 'international' I mean 'worldwide'). It has become hard, if not impossible, to do good research without inviting seminar speakers, travelling to conferences/workshops, working visits in maybe far away places. The importance of which is often underestimated.
   
   
   
   • b) Who:
     
     Investigate whether the currently applied criteria to select researchers are successful. Lee Smolin has more to say about this, so I will just give you a link to his Physics Today Article and ask you to think about it, if you haven't yet done so. If you have problems thinking on your own, read Lubos or Peter's comments, to jump start your brain.
   
   
3. On a regularly base, evaluate current research fields as to their progress regarding the goals from point 1.
   
   I do not think evaluation merely by experts on a sub-field is a good way to objectively judge on progress in a wider sense as given by point 1., under consideration of points 2a) and 2b). As I mentioned earlier, I would find it a good idea to have an advisory committee to provide an annual report, and to make recommendations.

In my experience, most scientists are reasonable people, and act to their best believes to ensure progress in research. However, currently it is poorly understood how science works best in the 21st century, and I think it is necessary to formulate some guidelines. Not as laws, but as recommendations.

---

Thanks to everyone who took the time to contribute to the discussion, on this or other blogs.

Black - Red - Gold

Germany vs. Sweden 2:0

My younger brother just came back to Germany from a vacation in Sweden. He also said, he almost didn't recognize Germany! Within only a couple of weeks, German flags appeared everywhere. Flags are hanging out of windows, on street lamps, trees, and cars. (The latter apparently breaks off easily -- I have seen them frequently flying around on the Autobahn.) Yesterday, we drove through Frankfurt after the soccer game was over, and everywhere people were waving flags. Some wore them as skirts, some as capes, some knotted them around their dogs. I saw many people having flags painted to their cheeks.

In the stores you can literally buy everything in the national colors: T-shirts, bags, hats, caps, shoes, scarves. But we are lacking behind of the US - I haven't yet seen cookies in black-red-gold...

Temporarily the German flags were sold out. But Taiwan quickly delivered more...

To me this is really stunning. If you didn't grow up in Germany, it might be hard to believe, but before this summer, you could hardly find a national flag anywhere. I remember a comment on my post Excuse me

The one thing I noticed in West Germany and West Berlin in the 1980's, was that the German national flag was almost nowhere to be seen. [...] In other countries like America, England, France, etc ... the national flags were everywhere.

Indeed, if you had been driving around with a national flag on your car, you probably would have been stopped by the police and been asked if you have a problem. The national flag has been displayed so rarely, many people apparently didn't know which side is the upper one, some others bought Belgian flags instead.

Two days ago, I found in the Frankfurt Rundschau the article I had been waiting for. The delegate from the PDS (the former communist party) Julia Bonk call the flags a 'nationalist's symbol introduced through the back door' which 'causes suppression of those in our country who think different'.

Yesterday, we took off the flowers and balloons from the car and Stefan bought a flag to attach to his window. (At least he tried. He then noticed that he forgot his purse.) Some days ago, I just had to get a flag and walk through the streets with it. I admit I was kind of afraid someone would start accusing me to be a Nazi. Instead, I got smiles and cheers, people waved at me from cars and houses. A small child pointed at my flag and said: Daddy, what is that. And daddy said proudly: It's the German flag. It's black-red-gold.

I don't particularly like the colours of the German flag (I actually find the US flag much nicer), but it's great to see Germany in such a good mood.

Marital Status

Single Married

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Update: Click here for more photos

Beautiful design

Among the many beautiful little things my future wife has brought along from her trips, one of the most remarkable souvenirs is a pair of small seashells she has found last week on the sandy beaches of Southern California. I have never seen clam shells like these before, although I have been collecting lots of them for myself at every occasion I have been at the seashore.



The shells have such a fine, creamy colour, with radiating lines painted in cafe au lait, and a beautiful shiny surface, they are just small little pieces of fine design no human artist could improve on.



If I got it right, these shells are a variety of shells of the Pismo clam (tivela stultorum), which is quite common in Southern California. Moreover, the mechanisms responsible for the formation of seashell patterns seem to be, in principle, understood. Complex, beautiful patterns can be reproduced by simple algorithms that model the growth of the shell and the spatio-temporal pattern of the deposition of pigments.

But the results are just marvellous.

Thank you, Bee :-)

Germany vs. Equador 3:0

Strong Germany Downs Ecuador 3-0

Greetings from Frankfurt,

Bee