Smolin in Brazil

ccdantas

I've just learned from Smolin himself that he will be at the XXVIII Encontro Nacional de Física de Partículas e Campos next September here in Brazil. Here is the program:

http://www.sbf1.sbfisica.org.br/even...rama/index.asp

His abstract will probably be there soon, I believe. I hope to attend it.

turbo

Very nice! Have fun, Christine.

marcus

Great! I hope we can hear about the conference from you.

jvdornas

Hi Christine, It is good to know that Smolin is coming to visit Brazil. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend his lecture. Águas de Lindóia is far from Belo Horizonte, where I live. But it will be nice and helpful if you could make a review about the lecture, if you could attend it.

best,

jvdornas

ccdantas

The abstract of Smolin's talk is now available:

"Emergence of chiral matter from quantum gravity"

http://www.sbf1.sbfisica.org.br/even...os/R0326-1.pdf

XXVIII Encontro Nacional de Física de Partículas e Campos - Brazil
24 to 28 sep 2007

http://www.sbf1.sbfisica.org.br/eventos/enfpc/xxviii/

Still don't know whether I'll be able to go...

jal

I think that this was his latest presentation.
Chiral excitations of quantum geometry as elementary particles
http://www.matmor.unam.mx/eventos/loops07/index.html

"Emergence of chiral matter from quantum gravity"
Will it be the same talk for Brazil??
jal

marcus

Christine already gave link to the abstract, but it's short so I'll copy it here to refer to. It sounds like similar subject matter but I suspect the presentation might be for a wider audience: non-specialists---so there might be more general information in the Brazil talk. Spend part of the time on a survey of Loop overall, and proportionately less time on the new results about matter degrees of freedom:

==quote==
Emergence of chiral matter from quantum gravity
Lee Smolin
Perimeter Institute, Canada

Loop quantum gravity is an approach to quantum gravity which follows from a non-perturbative, background independent quantization of diffeomorphism invariant gauge theories, including general relativity. The dynamics is best understood in terms of thbe path integral formulation, known also as spin foam models.

In the last two years it has been understood that these models have in some cases emergent chiral excitations, which can be interpreted as chiral matter degrees of freedom. As shown by Markopoulou et al these can be understood as noiseless subsystems in the language of quantum information theory. This provides a tool to study the excitations and spectra of models of dynamical quantum geometry. In the simplest such model studied, due to Bilson-Thompson, Markopoulou and Smolin, the simplest of these excitations correspond to the fermions of the standard model. The correspondence arises through a topological preon model introduced by Bilson-Thompson.

I will review the basics of loop quantum gravity and spin foam models necessary to understand these results. I will close with new results with Yidun Wan on the propagation and interactions of chiral excitations in models of quantum gravity.
==endquote==

If you followed the slides and audio of the Loops 07 talk, then my guess is that you got everything he is going to say next week at the Encontro

There is a video lecture by Yidun Wan online at Perimeter that deals with this----recent work by YW and LS. He does a good job. The Perimeter audience asks questions. His slides are clear. Anyone who is intrigued by this way of getting matter excitations in QG networks might like to sample the Yidun Wan talk.
http://pirsa.org/07090011/
Propagation and interaction of topological invariants on embedded 4-valent spinets

ccdantas

Thank you Marcus, I'll take a look at Yidun Wan's talk as well.

Smolin will also be at the round table about "The Future of Fundamental Physics" along with Elcio Abdalla, Glenn Starkman, Nathan Berkovits and Rajesh Gopakumar.

Christine

marcus

That could turn out to be quite an interesting discussion. It needs to be discussed, and by a mixed group of experts with different informed points of view. The links you have provide an idea of the specialities represented.

Christine, it starts next week on the 24th. Surely you must know by now whether or not you will attend. I am in suspense. BTW is Aguas near SP? If you decided to attend, would it be easy to get there?

About that panel: Starkman seems to cover the COSMOLOGY angle---very important to the future of fundamental physics!
He has also written several papers attacking the tendency to resort to anthropism. Often co-writes with Lawrence Krauss, who is prominent in the string debate. I like the Starkman papers I have read very much. But on the other hand, Berkovits and Gopakumar adhere to the stringly philosophy. It should be a lively discussion.

It looks like Aguas is about 170 kilometers to the north of SP. Is this right? A hotsprings resort with fine hotels and a beautiful ambiance?

turbo

Starkman's SPIRES links bring up a number of well-motivated papers on the subject of a dynamic Einsteinian "Aether" that could lead to a new understanding of gravitation. Interesting reading, that could mesh well with the LQG folks' concepts of the fine structure of space. If space is a dynamic player in the emergence of gravitational forces, and the fine-scale structure of space can be modified by the presence of embedded matter, we might reasonably expect variable gravity, which could obviate the need for dark matter. I wish I could attend that round table discussion.

ccdantas

Hi Marcus. I work in a military institute in which things can get so incredibly complicated to the point outsiders would never believe. There are other personal variables as well. BTW, I'm not officially subscribed. I'd be trying to get in somehow.

It would be a pity if I do not go, it's about 200km from São José dos Campos, where I live (which is 1h by car from São Paulo city). I even thought about arranging for him to visit the space research facilities here in SJC (comprising INPE and CTA), but I gave up on this idea.

Yes, that's right, although there are many, many other much more beautiful and interesting places to visit in Brazil. I think they chose Águas for some convenience.

ccdantas

Sorry, colleagues, I could not attend it, so I cannot report here on this conference...

Best,
Christine

marcus

We are in the same boat, Christine. I don't travel much, and whether by choice or necessity I tend to miss conferences. But I find that so much is online, in video and in the slides+audio format, that there is more of interest than I can easily follow.

the one thing that I regret not having your reactions to is that roundtable discussion, with the five people you mentioned

If we are good in this life, maybe in the life to come we will all be at Perimeter, where they have conferences every week and beer on Sunday.

ccdantas

Well, what I miss is not the conference per se (althought the round table will be very interesting), but the opportunity to meet Lee Smolin. This will have to wait for some other time.

ccdantas

maybe in the life to come we will all be at Perimeter

Eh? This reminds me of Borges:

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

homologous to

"Physicists have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Perimeter."

Christine