Category: Physics

I’d never seen this quote from Richard Feynman on the measurement problem:

When you start out to measure the property of one (or more) atom, say, you get for example, a spot on a photographic plate which you then interpret. But such a spot is really only more atoms & so in looking at the spot you are again measuring the properties of atoms, only now it is more atoms. What can we expect to end with if we say we can’t see many things about one atom precisely, what in fact can we see? Proposal,
Only those properties of a single atom can be measured which can be correlated (with finite probability) (by various experimental arrangements) with an unlimited no. o f atoms.
(I.e. the photographic spot is “real” because it can be enlarged & projected on screens, or affect large vats of chemicals, or big brains, etc., etc. – it can be made to affect ever increasing sizes of things – it can determine whether a train goes from N.Y. to Chic. – or an atom bomb explodes – etc.)

This is from a set of notes dating to 1946 as detailed in Silvan S. Schweber, “Feynman and the visualization of space-time processes” Rev. Mod. Phys. 58, 449 – 508 (1986).

The blackberry hole (aka the Perimeter Institute) has swallowed another person. Most fittingly, however, this time the observer will exist both inside and outside of the Perimeter Institute, thus giving us an answer to the black hole information paradox:

WATERLOO, Ontario, Canada, November, 2008 – Dr. Neil Turok, Director of Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI), is pleased to announce the appointment of internationally regarded scientist Prof. Stephen Hawking to the position of PI Distinguished Research Chair.
Prof. Hawking will conduct regular stays at PI in coming years, beginning in the summer of ’09, and says, “I am honoured to accept the first Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute. The Institute’s twin focus, on quantum theory and gravity, is very close to my heart and central to explaining the origin of the Universe. I look forward to building a growing partnership between PI and our Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, at Cambridge. Our research endeavour is global, and by combining forces I believe we will reap rich rewards.”
In announcing that Prof. Hawking will visit PI for extended periods each year, PI Director Neil Turok said, “The appointment marks a new phase in our recruitment that will see leading scientists from around the world establish a second ‘research home’ at Perimeter Institute. I am delighted that Stephen has agreed to accept the first of a projected 40 such visiting Chairs. We look forward to hosting Stephen in Waterloo, Ontario, to benefiting from his wise mentorship and guidance which has been so successful in Cambridge, and to the many stimulating scientific collaborations which will undoubtedly emerge.”

Garrett Lisi, surfer and creator of possible theories of everything, has given a TED talk:

I had never thought to put Schrodinger into the box.
“I try to balance my life between physics, love, and surfing. That way even if the physics I work on comes to nothing, I’ve lived a good life.” Word.

And the Nobel prize in Physics 2008 goes to…Yoichiro Nambu (1/2), Makoto Kobayashi (1/4), and Toshihide Maskawa (1/4) “for discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics” and “for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature.” I’m buried under work but if I can claw myself out of it I’ll write a post about their work. In the meantime, here is the Nobel’s scientific background.