Preparation for Feb 6

Posted on 2013/01/30 by kiwinerd

Hi everybody,

Next week we will have a fun group discussion about the testability of string theory. To help get ready for our conversation, please

  1. think over your own opinions on testability of string theory and your reasons for holding them;
  2. look up Greene’s textbook to see what he says about testability of string theory;
  3. track down any examples you have noticed so far of other well-known physicists criticizing the testability of string theory (for example on the NOVA video, online, or wherever). Recent views are more useful than older ones.  The juicier the better!

I am especially interested to hear how your views on the testability of string theory have changed during the sixteen weeks we have spent learning physics together so far. It will be directly helpful to my future teaching to hear your feedback: next year while I am on sabbatical in 2013-14 I am planning to write up my PMU199Y notes into an online book. My department will let me teach the course one more time in 2014-15.

It is worth noting that next week is also your last opportunity to ask me technical questions about modern physics. After that, we will shift more into the “Perspective” part of  the course title “Modern Physics in Perspective”. I am ready for any technical question you might have, so bring whatever you want to ask.

My aim for next week is to have a fun, rowdy, and informative discussion together. It will be so much more enjoyable if everyone brings an opinion to the table. So I want to warn you now: I will be calling on everyone in the class to speak. Like with picking oral presentation topics, it’s strategically smart to get in early.

All opinions will be welcome, regardless of how sophisticated they may be.  I will be in the hot seat. It will be up to me to show you the holes in the arguments of those who claim that string theory is not science. This will nicely segue into our discussion starting in Week 18 (sixth week of this semester) of how to tell real science apart from bullshit. Please consult the course syllabus for details.

Looking forward to it! :D

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Spring Orals presentation topics

Posted on 2013/01/30 by kiwinerd

As in Fall semester, in Week 8 of this semester we will not be having a regular seminar class. Instead, on March 6th, the entire student class will give presentations on topics of their choice. Each student will be allocated 3-3.5mins to speak. Visual aids are discouraged and computer use is prohibited. You are welcome to bring handwritten (or typewritten) speech notes on paper.

Please note that you are obliged to not steal other speakers’ thunder. In other words, when talking about your own topic you are not permitted to cover someone else’s topic.

If you need any advice on what to say or where to find good information, please ask your friendly Professor. She will give copious hints and suggestions when asked.

When Who What
14:10-14:16 Everyone Setting up
14:16 Chi How are physicists planning to detect gravitons? (LIGO)
14:20 Pravina How did dark energy go from being Einstein’s “greatest blunder” to being awesomely important today?
14:24 Jill Why did COBE satellite experimenters get the Nobel Prize in 2006?
14:28 Lana Why did two teams working on Supernovae win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011?
14:32 Alexandra How have the WMAP and Planck satellites taught us more about the evolution of the universe?
14:36 Jiwon What might dark matter be made of?
14:40 Kris What are some of the ways the Universe might have been born?
14:44 Rose What are the possibilities for the ultimate fate of the universe?
14:48 Eric What is the Multiverse?
14:52 Patricia What does the M in M theory mean?
14:56 Erin Why do some particle physicists like supersymmetry?
15:00 Yongjoon What are some of the exotic particles beyond the Standard Model that particle physicists hope to discover?
15:04-15:16 Everyone Toilet break 
15:16 Breen Different theories of extra dimensions
15:20 Maddy How do branes and warped extra dimensions help explain theoretically the observed weakness of gravity?
15:24 David K How do D-branes help create models of particle physics?
15:28 Celina How do strings that are not in their groundstate move?
15:32 Linda What is the role of tachyons in string theory?
15:36 Susanna What is the Cosmic Censorship hypothesis?
15:40 Jacob How does string theory help resolve spacetime curvature singularities?
15:44 Davide C Quantum geometry and the nature of spacetime in string theory
15:48 PJ What is quantum determinism and why did Stephen Hawking threaten it?
15:52 Mike Why exactly did Stephen Hawking concede a major scientific bet to John Preskill in 2004?
15:56 Alysha How does string theory help resolve the Black Hole Information Paradox?
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Essay 5

Posted on 2013/01/30 by kiwinerd

INSTRUCTIONS

It’s time for Essay 5 – on Cosmology, as promised. Essay 5 is worth 5% of your final grade and will be due in two weeks, i.e., by 2:10pm on Wednesday February 13th. Please write 5 pages of content, not including pictures. Your essay should be in the same style and format as before. I will expect you to reference between three and eight different sources.

QUESTION

Describe the cosmological story of our universe in terms of modern theoretical physics. Spend most of your discussion on the evolution of the universe (about 75%); spend the remainder (about 25%) on describing  possibilities for the origin and ultimate fate of our universe. Focus on creating a coherent “big picture” of Big Bang Cosmology as well as focusing on individual relevant facts.

You may draw upon any facts which you learned throughout the course so far, but the most useful and relevant lecture material is from the past two weeks – Cosmology notes from Weeks 15 and 16.

Note: I am deliberately allowing you some leeway in choosing which pieces of physics to emphasize in this essay. You have earned this privilege by now! :-) If you are in any doubt about what to emphasize, please use my Cosmology lecture notes as a guide. You will also find useful the set of cosmology links I posted last week.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Notes for Jan 30

Posted on 2013/01/23 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

I hope you had as much fun as I did hearing students teach most of today’s class. :-) The sense I got from students was that the discussion was productive and helpful. Please don’t hesitate to give me feedback (e.g. by email) about how well classroom discussions are working for you.

Next week we will continue our Cosmology bender and talk about how astrophysicists weigh the universe. Here are my notes ahead of time. You may also like to use the cosmology links I posted last week. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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A great Neil Tyson quote

Posted on 2013/01/18 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

I saw this quotation online today and thought it would be worth sharing with you.

Cheers,
Prof. P :-)

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Notes for Jan 23

Posted on 2013/01/16 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

Here are my notes on Big Bang Cosmology, Part 1 of 2. I suspect that you will enjoy learning this stuff a lot. :-)

You may also enjoy perusing at your leisure the following cosmology sources which I will list for your Essay 5. But you are under no obligation to read any of them.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

 

Sources for Essay 5

Web sites

  1. I hate to admit it, but the Wikipedia page on the Big Bang is actually really good. It’s rather too detailed for our purposes, but it gets the overall gist and the most important details right, and it doesn’t overemphasize speculative theories like “ekpyrosis”, “quantum cosmology”, “loop quantum gravity” and the like.
  2. NASA’s WMAP site is very good. This is a PDF of all their Cosmology explanations in one bundle. One fun activity you can do on their web site is to Build Your Own Universe (Flash tool).
  3. The American Institute of Physics’s Cosmology page gives a more historical emphasis than my lecture notes.
  4. Cambridge University in the UK has a cosmology web site.
  5. Doug Scott at UBC has some online information about the CMB.
  6. One other reasonably good web site about the big bang, which gets a lot of hat tips from other sites purporting to explain cosmology, is here. Except that I strongly recommend avoiding its descriptions of “Alternative” models: they are weirdly chosen, and not relevant to our course.

Magazine articles

  1. “Decoding the oldest Light in the Universe”; Sky & Telescope, May 2008; 18-23 pp., by Gary Hinshaw and Robert Naeye.

Cosmology books for laypeople (mostly from a list put together by WMAP)

  1. Steven Weinberg’s popular book “The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe” (1977) is brilliant. The only disadvantage is that it was written in the seventies and so the material is dated: there have been many important cosmological discoveries since then.
  2. “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking (1988)
  3. “The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos” by Robert P. Kirschner (2002)
  4. “Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang” by Jonathan Allday
  5. “The Accelerating Universe : Infinite Expansion, the Cosmological Constant, and the Beauty of the Cosmos” by Mario Livio
  6. “One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos” by Neil De Grasse Tyson, et al
  7. “The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins” by Alan H. Guth
  8. “Measuring the Universe: Our Historic Quest to Chart the Horizons of Space and Time” by Kitty Ferguson
  9. “Echo of the Big Bang” (discusses the WMAP Mission) by Michael D. Lemonick
  10. “Just Six Numbers : The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe” by (Sir) Martin J. Rees
  11. “How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space” by Janna Levin
  12. “The Five Ages of the Universe : Inside the Physics of Eternity” by Fred Adams, Greg Laughlin
  13. “Before the Beginning : Our Universe and Others” by (Sir) Martin J. Rees
  14. “In Search of the Edge of Time : Black Holes, White Holes, Wormholes” by John Gribbin
  15. “The Sky Is Not The Limit : Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist” by Neil De Grasse Tyson
  16. “The Little Book of the Big Bang : A Cosmic Primer” by Craig J. Hogan
  17. “Astrophysical Concepts” by Martin Harwit
  18. “The Very First Light : The True Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe” by John C. Mather, John Boslough
  19. “Afterglow of Creation : From the Fireball to the Discovery of Cosmic Ripples” by Marcus Chown
  20. “After the First Three Minutes : The Story of Our Universe” by T. Padmanabhan
  21. “The Whole Shebang : A State-Of-The-Universe(s) Report” by Timothy Ferris
  22. “Astronomy For Dummies” by Stephen Maran
  23. “The Origin of the Universe” by John D. Barrow
  24. “The Big Bang” by Joseph Silk
  25. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy” by Kip S. Thorne
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Essay 4

Posted on 2013/01/15 by kiwinerd

This essay is worth 5% of your final grade and is due in two weeks, i.e. by 2:10PM on Wednesday January 30th. Please write about 4-4.5 pages (single-spaced) counting references.

QUESTION: What is String duality? What is M Theory?

INSTRUCTIONS:-

  • Watch the remaining bulk of Episode 2 and all of Episode 3 of the NOVA “Elegant Universe” videos. In a similar style to Essay 3, give a summary of what you learned from watching these 2nd and 3rd NOVA videos. Emphasize the things that the documentary explained particularly well, and the things that helped your physics understanding the most. (Feel free to also critique a few things that you didn’t find especially helpful, but don’t make criticism your focus. Keep it positive.)
  • When you’re writing, weave together this NOVA video material with what you’ve learned in class. It is essential that you answer two questions in your exposition: (a) What is string duality? If you need an example, use T-duality. (b) What is M theory and why would anyone care?

RESOURCES

  • What about references? Please use only (1) NOVA videos, (2) Greene textbook (Chapter 12 especially), (3) my lecture notes. If you find another reference you want to use, please check it with me first. This rule exists for your protection because very few good online sources exist for this advanced material.
  • Please remember to correctly reference your sources, just like in previous essays. In particular, I want to see time codes for movie references – e.g. “NOVA video 2 (15:18)” would mean 15min 18sec from the beginning of the 2nd video. For the textbook please quote the page number instead, and for lecture notes quote the page number and the date of the class.
  • Don’t forget that I’m able to answer any physics questions about string duality or M theory in person, either during office hours or during a private appointment pre-booked by email. I also recommend Skype text (to kiwinerd) as a great way to have a conversation that’s easily cut and pasted.
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Notes for Jan 16

Posted on 2013/01/15 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

As indicated in the Syllabus available on this here web site, this week we are talking about SYMMETRY.

Here are my notes for this week’s class. Sorry they were not available earlier; I had my weekend and Monday fouled up by some unexpected unpleasant family business which is now concluded.

Cheers,
Prof. P.

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Happy 2013!

Posted on 2013/01/08 by kiwinerd

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a good break with some relaxation, whether you were strolling on a South Pacific island beach or dogsledding in Nunavut. I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow in class so we can resume our discussion of string duality. I have not set any reading for you ahead of time because the topic is pretty complicated and I should be doing most of the work explaining things. I will however get students to do some significant in-class discussion about D-branes, which should be fun. :-)

Here are my notes for tomorrow. The usual URL for the overall course notes has remained the same but the file has been updated.

Cheers,

Prof. P.

 

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Note about “current class rank”

Posted on 2012/12/11 by kiwinerd

Hi.

Some of you have emailed me confused about what “current class rank” means.

It means exactly what it says. “Current” means now. “Class” means our PMU199Y class. “Rank” means how well you are doing compared to other students in this class.

Your ranking (out of 23) is calculated by summing your (essay, oral, test, participation) grades so far with weightings according to the course grading formula.

I hope this clarifies things sufficiently.

Cheers
Prof. P.

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