Though I use Linux and think the open source software model is best, I am still willing to give Bill Gates the credit he deserves.

Bill Gates has made some famous Feynman lectures free for the public!

For those who don’t know, Richard Feynman was a very famous physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, won the Nobel Prize in physics for QED, and seemed to be involved in several other famous scientific activities. Many regard him as one of the top scientific minds ever.

In 1964, at Cornell, Feynman gave a famous series of lectures on physics highlighting the character of physical law. These lectures are very fascinating and have a lot of unique insights into a variety of subjects. Feynman had the ability to understand physical principles several different ways and could explain them in fairly simple terms. The lectures are truly masterpieces.

The lectures are available for free at Microsoft’s Research Website. (Here is my only critique of the whole thing: Gates runs this great charity, but finds a way to make it so that his contributions require the use of Microsoft products. Go figure.)

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I have to applaud whoever is behind the String Theory Wiki.  That site is so helpful even if  you are not interested in pure string theory but topics related such as theoretical cosmology.  The site has several review articles on a variety of topics in theoretical physics.

It would be nice to see more sites like this.  Often, especially as a grad student, you discover you need to learn more about some topic and then face a huge vat of literature without knowing where to start.  This wiki helps you quickly discover what is out there by way of review and sometimes has helpful commentary such as: “this is the standard introduction.”

I encourage everyone to check it out.  I also encourage all people outside of theoretical physics to start their own such wiki page. You will save people hours of valuable time and in a real way will help facilitate research.

I blogged recently about Gell-Mann’s Ted Talk in which he has this fascinating quotation:

Now, some people call that a theory of everything. That’s wrong, because the theory is quantum mechanical….

But the main thing here is that it predicts probabilities. Now, sometimes those probabilities are near certainties… But other times they’re not, and you have only probabilities for different outcomes. So what that means is that the history of the universe is not determined just by the fundamental law. It’s the fundamental law and this incredibly long series of accidents, or chance outcomes, that are there in addition.

And the fundamental theory doesn’t include those chance outcomes; they are in addition. So it’s not a theory of everything. And in fact, a huge amount of the information in the universe around us comes from those accidents, and not just from the fundamental laws.

Ultimately, fundamental theories predict probabilities that certain things will happen.  On macroscopic scales these probabilities are near certainties which is why deterministic theories such as Newtonian mechanics do such a good job.  As we dig deeper we find that nature is not really governed by a deterministic theory, but rather a quantum reality emerges where each event is given a probability it will happen.

Now the universe isn’t an “anything goes” place.  Though there are uncertainties, these fundamental theories spell out which uncertainties are possible and how often they should occur.  Anything violating these restrictions is an impossibility so, though there is always uncertainty, there is also always law being obeyed.

Nevertheless a wonderful thought occurred to me: people talk about how reality is the way it is because of physical law.  Fine.  But it is also cool to think about how reality is the way it is due to accidents.  (However,  returning to a previously mentioned point: it seems like on macroscopic scales things become certain enough that no matter how you shake and bake the accidents you get the same outcome.  Statistical Mechanics is great! )

I “grew up” in the programming sense using vi, or specifically Vim, as a text editor so I was pleased to see it is preferred over Emacs among Ubuntu users.

I’ve tried Emacs, but it just doesn’t work for me.  Now, I get the impression that once you have gotten used to one it is very hard to switch.  I know Emacs users who have tried out Vim only to be disappointed.

However, know this, Vi rules!

In the midst of so many major news outlets struggling to make ends meet, Glenn Greenwald says it best:

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.

It is incredible to me how effective blogs and other online content providers are these days. The economics of information distribution is changing very quickly.

Speaking of science being ever improving approximations to reality, perhaps Murray Gell-Mann summed this up better than most at TED. Watch and enjoy:

While at a book store the other day I discovered The Road to Reality, by Roger Penrose.  It has to be the most mathematically sophisticated math/science book intended partially with the layman in mind.  In mean, what other book do you know tries to boil down concepts like fiber bundles and tensor group representation using what I believe is called birdtrack notation for the general public?

I thoroughly enjoyed how he tries to explain fractions using equivalence classes.   That’s going to go over great with a population struggling to understand how to multiply fractions!

However, I must say I am really enjoying the book so far.  The first half of the book is math build up and the second half is science.  For anyone able to get through the technical details I must say it is a good book to read.

I enjoy how he separates the mathematical structure we use to model the universe from the literal structure that is the universe.  I believe it is healthy for people to understand that science is every improving approximations to reality.  Newtonian physics goes so far, then you need quantum mechanics which does better, then QFT, then,.. quantum gravity?  It’s all just ever improving approximations to real world in which we live.

I double majored in math and physics as an undergraduate. Math, especially pure math, really gets me excited. In fact, many math professors couldn’t understand why I didn’t stick with math for graduate school as I was so passionate.

The reality is I love studying math but not doing proofs all day. I enjoy speculating what roles topology and group theory play in the universe, but abhor proving theorems for things that seem pathologically bizarre.

With that backdrop, I really get a kick out of this song every time I hear it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

One more article to break the ice so that readers can understand my political mindset.  Today Peggy Noonan, a conservative writer for the Wall Street Journal, wrote the best article on Sarah Palin I have ever read.

Don’t get me wrong. I feel sorry for Sarah Palin; I really do.  But Ms. Noonan really hit the nail on the head with this one.