Baez talk today---notes available and accessible

marcus

JB gives a talk at Perimeter today Wednesday 31 May and has posted his slides

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/quantum_spacetime/qs.pdf

the slides serve as Lecture Notes (they have complete sentences and continuity as well as pictures).

It is a pretty good talk.

marcus

Baez has a brief sketch of the history of physics


*from the categorist's viewpoint*

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/history.pdf

there is a long line in light comic literature of these highly subjective "brief histories" like the famous 1066 and All That which was history viewed from the standpoint of a British schoolboy parodying his masters.
Stephen Hawking capitalized on the good will this genre has created by hinting in his title that it would be like this but for me the levity didnt take off in Hawking's case nor was there all that much originality.

However this Baez thing might actually be majorly enlightening if you think of it as how categorists could imagine the history of physics.
IMHO the key to success in this genre is that it should be the viewpoint of someone who is *constitutionally incapable* of understanding the subject in a conventional way, and who fits that bill better than a category theorist.

Oh, bear in mind the posted warning that this is a DRAFT VERSION which means download it now if you want it because drafts often go away and get replaced by updates at different URL and such. Baez and Lauda are still working on it.

also keep in mind that high seriousness and high comedy taken to the limit coincide at a vanishing point. I mean, this paper could be brilliant. It *could* be the right way to look at the history of physics.
the sensation of laughter could be just due to the novelty

marcus

I want to call this the Baez Chronology of Physics since Maxwell

it is good. I am getting blown away reading it.

every movement redefines history and tells the story in its own way

and this is what they are hearing about at the Perimeter Institute today 31 May 2006 at their colloquium.

damn