Lee Smolin and Brian Greene on radio tomorrow

[Martin]

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2006/Aug/hour2_081806.html

 

the second hour of "Science Friday", a weekly feature on NPR (US national public radio) hosted by Ira Flatow

 

will include a chat between Lee and Brian about the current situation in fundamental physics----st***g theory and all that.

 

If you live in the US and can get NPR, you might want to tune in.

 

==============

I just learned that Discover magazine has a review of the two new books by Lee Smolin and Peter Woit

that are causing a stir by criticizing institutional concentration on string theory (to the exclusion of non-string alternative approaches).

 

http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-06/departments/septreviews/

 

the review is by Tim Folger

http://www.timfolger.net/bio.html

he seems to be enjoying the prospect of string and loop duking it out.

[Martin]

Smolin now has a website for his book

http://www.thetroublewithphysics.com/

 

among a bunch of other stuff (comments by reviewers, links to stuff on web, bio, other books etc) he also posted the new book's table of contents

 

===quote===

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction vii

PART I: THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION

1: The Five Great Problems in Theoretical Physics 1

2: The Beauty Myth 18

3: The World As Geometry 38

4: Unification Becomes a Science 54

5: From Unification to Superunification 66

6: Quantum Gravity: The Fork in the Road 80

PART II: A BRIEF HISTORY OF STRING THEORY

7: Preparing for a Revolution 101

8: The First Superstring Revolution 114

9: Revolution Number Two 129

10: A Theory of Anything 149

11: The Anthropic View 161

12: What String Theory Explains 177

PART III: BEYOND STRING THEORY

13: Surprises from the Real World 203

14: Building on Einstein 223

15: Physics After String Theory 238

PART IV: LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

16: How Do You Fight Sociology? 261

17: What Is Science? 289

18: Seers and Craftspeople 306

19: How Science Really Works 332

20: What We Can Do for Science 349

===endquote===

 

"Science Friday" starts about now. 11 AM westcoast, 2PM eastern time

 

but I think the discussion between Greene and Smolin will be in the second hour, which starts 3PM eastern.

 

I got this news from BEE HOSSENFELDER blog

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/

 

she is a QG phenomenologist (Frankfurt Germany theoretical physics PhD)

but also an artist. She has posted one of her graphic artworks

I really like it. It is a cartoon storyboard looking thing and witty

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2006/08/more-trouble-with-physics.html

 

the painting/lithograph is about strings, but they are shoestrings---no big deal.

she sells her paintings from her website

 

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2001_01_01_backreaction_archive.html

galleries here:

http://www.sabines-gallery.com/

 

She also publishes a lot of physics research papers. It is unusual, I think, for a young physics researcher to also

be a working artist selling their paintings---probably it helps with the income because postdocs dont get much money.

[CPL.Luke]

that sounds like the first science popularization that would actually be worth reading. (I found a brief history and the elegant universe to lack substance)

 

I wonder if there are any sample chapters available.

[Martin]

that sounds like the first science popularization that would actually be worth reading. (I found a brief history and the elegant universe to lack substance)

 

I wonder if there are any sample chapters available.

 

I AGREE!

Actually even though I read mostly stuff that is online or downloadable THIS book is one I plan to buy!

 

Glad you are interested CPL. AFAIK there are no sample chapters, but the book is listed at both Amazon and amazon.co.uk.

If you find sample chapters please let me know!

[Martin]

It was a good discussion! mature level. tense, but with minimal actual conflict

 

Lee and Brian had a lot of viewpoints in common

Ira Flatow did a good moderating job, everybody had plenty of time to make their points clearly.

 

there may be re-runs, and it might be worth someone's while to listen to it in the NPR "Science Friday" archive

[CPL.Luke]

there's also a podcast available on itunes, under NPR scifri

[Martin]

to listen to it (about 30 minutes) from the NPR archives

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5670911