This week, there is a big String Theory conference in Paris, called Strings 2004. Hundreds (there are that many!) of string theorists have descended on the City of Light to give presentations and practice their craft. Among them is a Canadian physicist currently at the University of Texas named Jacques Distler. He runs a Weblog, simply titled Musings, which I visit regularly. I am in awe of this guy's intellectual complexity and mastery not only of incredibly difficult mathematics and physics, but also computer theory and coding. This week he is posting updates from the Paris string theory conference. Here's a sampling of Distler's reportage:

Sen gave a very beautiful talk on 1+1 dimensional noncritical string theory. He worked out the relation between the infinite number of conserved charges of the Matrix model and the infinite number of conserved charges of the continuum theory. This relation was known at ? =0 a decade ago. Sen's contribution was to generalize the formula to nonzero.…he then went on to discuss the long-standing puzzle of the subject: where is the 2D blackhole in the Matrix model? The last talk of the day was by Ofer Aharony about the deconfinement transition in large-N gauge theories at finite volume. For small enough volume, the transition can (interestingly enough) be studied in perturbation theory…For the free theory, the path integral reduces to a unitary matrix model (for the Wilson line around the thermal circle), and one finds a Hagedorn transition (for free N=4 SYM on S 3 ) at T H =-1/(log(7-43 )R.

Gosh, I love it when he talks like that. I don't understand a single word of it, at least in its context there, but it sounds serious to me. It sounds arcane, and enticing.

One of the reasons I am studying math and physics has nothing to do with wanting to know the workings of reality. I want to know math and physics because they are difficult, arcane, esoteric, and massively complex systems. I have a "thing" for that kind of knowledge. If you read my most recent entry, from June 29, you remember my mention of Theosophy. This is an equally arcane and complex body of knowledge, but as any scientist will tell you, there is no comparison between the unreal occult phantasms of Theosophy, and the attempts of string theory to uncover the ultimate nature of the physical world. Or….is there? There are some scientists who point out that there has been no experimental confirmation of anything that string theory presents. At least, not yet. Is string theory science, or is it a kind of theosophy, except without the gods and souls and cycles of incarnations?

That last question is, from a person at my level, extremely impertinent. You might say that my entire science/math quest is an exercise in impertinence. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for me to take up spinning, knitting, and weaving, as many of my friends have. As I advance, I continually remind myself that there is no practical purpose for my doing this study. I cannot expect any career to come of it, at my age. Yet I am not doing it, as one Friendly Scientist insists on telling me, as an "exercise for my brain" so that I won't grow senile as I grow older. I am doing it, as I mentioned here last time, to be raised to a higher power.

Will I ever be raised to the intellectual power of Jacques Distler, or the other participants in Strings 2004? Will I ever understand anything they publish? Should I even bother trying to advance that far? It is almost a certainty (well, at least 99 percent, anyway) that I will never work with string theory, or any other physics/mathematics work, at the level of one of the conference participants. And yet I am willing to keep going, anyway. Impertinence indeed! As the British might say, I am getting above myself here. But I don't care. If there's even a tiny chance that I might eventually attend a conference like Strings 2004 and understand and enjoy it and even ask the right questions, I'll keep going. See you at Strings 2021, Jacques.

Posted at 2:49 am | link