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We know of Daniele Oriti because he has been postdoc in Renate Loll's group in Utrecht (see the Loll SciAm link in my sig) and because we have been following the news about his forthcoming book Approaches to Quantum Gravity: towards a new understanding of space, time, and matter
Oriti has just won a prestigeous Humbolt foundation prize giving longterm support to independent young researchers able to find their own direction rather than simply work in some establish older-person's program. So Oriti will go to the Albert Einstein Institute outside Berlin (where Bojowald was based until he made faculty at Penn State, and several other prominent QG scientists have connections). I guess he will have support for 5 years at the AEI and money not only for his own needs but possibly to offer postdoc visitorships to other young researchers who can collaborate in the program he sets up.
http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/pls/web/wt_show.text_page?p_text_id=795988
Oriti's grant is for 1.4 million Euro.
I think this is smart policy on the German science establishment part because--in the the US system where the funds are assigned to projects rather than to individuals--young researchers can waste too many good years working on some senior person's pet dead-end. By contrast, here is support direct to the young individual with proven talent+initiative, not indirectly doled via preconceived program.
It is a policy that Smolin's book Trouble suggested be followed in the US. We might learn something from the Humbolt foundation maybe.
The last news I heard about Oriti was he was packing up his stuff to move from Utrecht to the Albert Einstein Institute in Gölm.
There were 8 young researchers awarded the prizes (up to 1.6 million Euro each) and many were in bio and medicine. There was just one out of the eight given to theoretical physics.
So let's take a closer look at Oriti's kind of QG physics---it is part of the Loop Quantum Gravity/Spinfoam/Group Field Theory cluster. We should look at GFT.
Yidun Wan, in his most recent BraidMatter-in-spinnetwork paper mentioned a possible link-up in Oriti's direction. We should understand how BraidMatter could connect with GFT ( Oriti's focus.)
We should also review what is going on with Oriti's book, due out February 2009. The cover photograph is turbulent water, a good metaphor for the dynamic quantum geometry of space that is studied in QG.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521860458/?tag=pfamazon01-20
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521860451
back in 2006 Christine Dantas had an interview with Daniele Oriti at her blog. I don't know if it is still available online. I have the impression that Daniele has also posted some here at PF, but it would be quite a while back.
In any case our main task should be to introduce Group Field Theory and give some sources. this is an approach that Laurent Freidel and Kirill Krasnov initiated, as I recall, but they did not pursue it so much. Instead, GFT has been developed during the past 3 years mainly by Oriti. It apparently has some kinship both with Spinfoam, one one side, and with Loll's Triangulations QG on the other side.
For people who read German:
Spitzenpreis für Nachwuchswissenschaftler
Dr. Daniele Oriti erhält Sofja Kovalevskaja-Preis in Höhe
von 1,41 Mio €
Dr. Daniele Oriti wird von der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung mit einem Sofja Kovalevskaja-Preis ausgezeichnet. Mit dem Preisgeld in Höhe von knapp 1,41 Millionen Euro wird Oriti am Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut, AEI) ab Dezember 2008 eine Forschungsgruppe aufbauen und daran forschen, neue Einsichten in die Frühzeit des Universums zu gewinnen.
to build a researchgroup and to conduct research aimed at acquiring new insights into the early universe.
http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/english/contemporaryIssues/akt_news/index.html
Oriti has just won a prestigeous Humbolt foundation prize giving longterm support to independent young researchers able to find their own direction rather than simply work in some establish older-person's program. So Oriti will go to the Albert Einstein Institute outside Berlin (where Bojowald was based until he made faculty at Penn State, and several other prominent QG scientists have connections). I guess he will have support for 5 years at the AEI and money not only for his own needs but possibly to offer postdoc visitorships to other young researchers who can collaborate in the program he sets up.
http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/pls/web/wt_show.text_page?p_text_id=795988
Oriti's grant is for 1.4 million Euro.
I think this is smart policy on the German science establishment part because--in the the US system where the funds are assigned to projects rather than to individuals--young researchers can waste too many good years working on some senior person's pet dead-end. By contrast, here is support direct to the young individual with proven talent+initiative, not indirectly doled via preconceived program.
It is a policy that Smolin's book Trouble suggested be followed in the US. We might learn something from the Humbolt foundation maybe.
The last news I heard about Oriti was he was packing up his stuff to move from Utrecht to the Albert Einstein Institute in Gölm.
There were 8 young researchers awarded the prizes (up to 1.6 million Euro each) and many were in bio and medicine. There was just one out of the eight given to theoretical physics.
So let's take a closer look at Oriti's kind of QG physics---it is part of the Loop Quantum Gravity/Spinfoam/Group Field Theory cluster. We should look at GFT.
Yidun Wan, in his most recent BraidMatter-in-spinnetwork paper mentioned a possible link-up in Oriti's direction. We should understand how BraidMatter could connect with GFT ( Oriti's focus.)
We should also review what is going on with Oriti's book, due out February 2009. The cover photograph is turbulent water, a good metaphor for the dynamic quantum geometry of space that is studied in QG.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521860458/?tag=pfamazon01-20
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521860451
back in 2006 Christine Dantas had an interview with Daniele Oriti at her blog. I don't know if it is still available online. I have the impression that Daniele has also posted some here at PF, but it would be quite a while back.
In any case our main task should be to introduce Group Field Theory and give some sources. this is an approach that Laurent Freidel and Kirill Krasnov initiated, as I recall, but they did not pursue it so much. Instead, GFT has been developed during the past 3 years mainly by Oriti. It apparently has some kinship both with Spinfoam, one one side, and with Loll's Triangulations QG on the other side.
For people who read German:
Spitzenpreis für Nachwuchswissenschaftler
Dr. Daniele Oriti erhält Sofja Kovalevskaja-Preis in Höhe
von 1,41 Mio €
Dr. Daniele Oriti wird von der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung mit einem Sofja Kovalevskaja-Preis ausgezeichnet. Mit dem Preisgeld in Höhe von knapp 1,41 Millionen Euro wird Oriti am Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik (Albert-Einstein-Institut, AEI) ab Dezember 2008 eine Forschungsgruppe aufbauen und daran forschen, neue Einsichten in die Frühzeit des Universums zu gewinnen.
to build a researchgroup and to conduct research aimed at acquiring new insights into the early universe.
http://www.aei-potsdam.mpg.de/english/contemporaryIssues/akt_news/index.html
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