Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas15 Okt 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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Episoder(427)

126 | David Stasavage on the Origin and History of Democracy

Those of us living in democracies tend to take the idea for granted. We forget what an audacious, radical idea it is to put government power into the hands of literally all of the citizens of a countr...

7 Des 20201h 25min

125 | David Haig on the Evolution of Meaning from Darwin to Derrida

Aristotle conceived of the world in terms of teleological "final causes"; Darwin, or so the story goes, erased purpose and meaning from the world, replacing them with a bloodless scientific algorithm....

30 Nov 20201h 15min

124 | Solo: How Time Travel Could and Should Work

Time! It doesn't stop, psychological effects of being under lockdown notwithstanding. How we experience time depends on our situation, but time itself just marches forward. Unless, of course, it's pos...

23 Nov 20202h 41min

AMA | November 2020

As you have likely heard me mention before, I have an account on Patreon, where people can sign up to donate a dollar or two per episode of Mindscape. In return they get two tangible (if minor) benefi...

20 Nov 20203h 12min

123 | Lisa Feldman Barrett on Emotions, Actions, and the Brain

Emotions are at the same time utterly central to who we are — where would we be without them? — and also seemingly peripheral to the "real" work our brains do, understanding the world and acting withi...

16 Nov 20201h 17min

122 | David Eagleman on Tapping Into the Livewired Brain

Imagine you were locked in a sealed room, with no way to access the outside world but a few screens showing a view of what's outside. Seems scary and limited, but that's essentially the situation that...

9 Nov 20201h 17min

121 | Cornel West on What Democracy Is and Should Be

This episode is published on November 2, 2020, the day before an historic election in the United States. An election that comes amidst growing worries about the future of democratic governance, as wel...

2 Nov 20201h 21min

120 | Jeremy England on Biology, Thermodynamics, and the Bible

Erwin Schrödinger's famous book What Is Life? highlighted the connections between physics, and thermodynamics in particular, and the nature of living beings. But the exact connections between living o...

26 Okt 20201h 28min