Report on the Solvay 2005 Public day

[Kalimaa23]

Greetings,

You may remember that 2005 saw another Solvay meeting on physics. In it's aftermath, a public day was organised in Brussels. Your's truly was present, and has composed a short review on his blog :

http://stringschool.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

 

[arivero]

Fortunate you, Dimitri.

I note that Gross was the only one interested in physics at all. The other ones are about metaphysics. Very Solvay-like, then?

 

[Kalimaa23]

Arivero, I know that you don't believe in string theory, that's fine by me.

But consider the questions by Dijkgraaf and 't Hooft :

DIJKGRAAF : What will the equations of physics look like in a century? What kind of new mathematics will we use?
't HOOFT : Do we need to reformulate quantum mechanics? When the subject is more mature, and better understood mathematically, will it change our view on physics?

Even if you don't like string theory, how is this metaphysics?

 

[arivero]

Arivero, I know that you don't believe in string theory, that's fine by me.

But consider the questions by Dijkgraaf and 't Hooft :

DIJKGRAAF : What will the equations of physics look like in a century? What kind of new mathematics will we use?
't HOOFT : Do we need to reformulate quantum mechanics? When the subject is more mature, and better understood mathematically, will it change our view on physics?

Even if you don't like string theory, how is this metaphysics?

Well, they are questions about the narrative more than about the action itself.

Particularly, t'Hooft second question is either tautological or retoric (how can you have a more mature subject holding the same views?). His first question is more physical but it is more a reflect of his own current research interest, and it is still a metaquestion: it does not point the finger on the current problems of QM or QFT.