Related papers: On Science, pseudoscience and String theory
Introduction to the theory of decoherence. Contents: 1. The phenomenon of decoherence: superpositions, superselection rules, decoherence by "measurements". 2. Observables as a derivable concept. 3. The measurement problem. 4. Density…
The first lecture gives a colloquium-level overview of string theory and M-theory. The second lecture surveys various attempts to construct a viable model of particle physics. A recently proposed approach, based on F-theory, is emphasized.
A review is attempted of physical motivations, theoretical and phenomenological aspects, as well as outstanding problems, of the pre-big bang scenario in string cosmology.
The P versus NP problem is addressed in a context of provability and limitations on the possibility of finding sound axioms for formal theories. It is shown that if the term "constructible theory" is defined in a way which satisfies certain…
Given two conformal field theories related to each other by a marginal perturbation, and string field theories constructed around such backgrounds, we show how to construct explicit redefinition of string fields which relate these two…
I review recent progress on the connection between string theory and quantum chromodynamics in the context of the gauge/gravity duality. Emphasis is placed on conciseness and conceptual aspects rather than on technical details. Topics…
Much of the recent progress in String Theory can be traced to a precise strategy: a careful study of the few models known since the beginnings of the subject, and the abstraction from them of basic properties that one would like to demand…
Identifying which Wikipedia articles are related to science fiction, fantasy, or their hybrids is challenging because genre boundaries are porous and frequently overlap. Wikipedia nonetheless offers machine-readable structure beyond text,…
It is an old speculation that SU(N) gauge theory can alternatively be formulated as a string theory. Recently this subject has been revived, in the wake of the discovery of D-branes. In particular, it has been argued that at least some…
In this article, I will explore the nature of interference in translation, especially in technical and scientific texts, using a descriptivist approach. I will have a brief overview of the historical excursion of interference in technical…
During decades the study of networks has been divided between the efforts of social scientists and natural scientists, two groups of scholars who often do not see eye to eye. In this review I present an effort to mutually translate the work…
An overview is given of the formulation of low-energy string cosmologies together with examples of particular solutions, successes and problems of the theory.
This work presents parallel histories of the development of two modern theories of condensed matter: the theory of electron structure in quantum mechanics, and the theory of liquid structure in statistical mechanics. Comparison shows that…
In this essay, I argue that modern science is not the dichotomous pairing of theory and experiment that it is typically presented as, and I offer an alternative paradigm defined by its functions as a human endeavor. I also demonstrate how…
We consider some questions of naturalness which arise when one considers conventional field theories in the presence of gravitation: the problem of global symmetries, the strong CP problem, and the cosmological constant problem. Using…
We give an overview of the status of string cosmology. We explain the motivation for the subject, outline the main problems, and assess some of the proposed solutions. Our focus is on those aspects of cosmology that benefit from the…
Currently it is widely accepted that the language of science is mathematics. This book explores an alternative idea where the future of science is based on the language of algorithms and programs. How such a language can actually be…
We give a brief overview of the nature of spacetime emerging from string theory. This is radically different from the familiar spacetime of Einstein's relativity. At a perturbative level, the spacetime metric appears as ``coupling…
Datacentric enthusiasm is growing strong across a variety of domains. Whilst data science asks unquestionably exciting scientific questions, we argue that its contributions should not be extrapolated from the scientific context in which…
Scientific understanding is a fundamental goal of science, allowing us to explain the world. There is currently no good way to measure the scientific understanding of agents, whether these be humans or Artificial Intelligence systems.…