Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas15 Loka 2018

18 | Clifford Johnson on What's So Great About Superstring Theory

String theory is a speculative and highly technical proposal for uniting the known forces of nature, including gravity, under a single quantum-mechanical framework. This doesn't seem like a recipe for creating a lightning rod of controversy, but somehow string theory has become just that. To get to the bottom of why anyone (indeed, a substantial majority of experts in the field) would think that replacing particles with little loops of string was a promising way forward for theoretical physics, I spoke with expert string theorist Clifford Johnson. We talk about the road string theory has taken from a tentative proposal dealing with the strong interactions, through a number of revolutions, to the point it's at today. Also, where all those extra dimensions might have gone. At the end we touch on Clifford's latest project, a graphic novel that he wrote and illustrated about how science is done. Clifford Johnson is a Professor of Physics at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics and physics from the University of Southampton. His research area is theoretical physics, focusing on string theory and quantum field theory. He was awarded the Maxwell Medal from the Institute of Physics. Johnson is the author of the technical monograph D-Branes, as well as the graphic novel The Dialogues. Home page Wikipedia page Publications A talk on The Dialogues Asymptotia blog Twitter

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214 | Antonio Padilla on Large Numbers and the Scope of the Universe

It's a big universe we live in, so it comes as no surprise that big numbers are needed to describe it. There are roughly 10^22 stars in the observable universe, and about 10^88 particles altogether. B...

17 Loka 20221h 15min

AMA | October 2022

Welcome to the October 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pat...

10 Loka 20223h 1min

213 | Timiebi Aganaba on Law and Governance in Space

With communication satellites, weather satellites, GPS, and much more, what happens in space is already important to our lives here on Earth. And the importance of space is only going to grow as we in...

3 Loka 20221h 16min

212 | Chiara Mingarelli on Searching for Black Holes with Pulsars

The detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling black holes by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations was rightly celebrated as a landmark achievement in physics and astronomy. But ultra-precise grou...

26 Syys 20221h 26min

211 | Solo: Secrets of Einstein's Equation

My little pandemic-lockdown contribution to the world was a series of videos called The Biggest Ideas in the Universe. The idea was to explain physics in a pedagogical way, concentrating on establishe...

19 Syys 20221h 51min

210 | Randall Munroe on Imagining What If...?

What's the fastest way to get a human being around a racetrack, if we ignore all the rules of racing? How many pages would you have to read to absorb all of the government laws that apply to you? It's...

12 Syys 20221h 8min

209 | Brad DeLong on Why the 20th Century Fell Short of Utopia

People throughout history have imagined ideal societies of various sorts. As the twentieth century dawned, advances in manufacturing and communication arguably brought the idea of utopia within our pr...

5 Syys 20221h 24min

AMA | September 2022

Welcome to the September 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by P...

29 Elo 20223h 30min