Phymaths podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Description Dr. Nabil Iqbal is a theoretical physicist at Durham University. He works on holography, generalized symmetries, and condensed matter physics among other things. A list of his works can be found in the link below. Some links 1) Dr. Iqbal's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1051240 2) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:37) Guest's intro (0:59) Inspiration for Physics (5:00) Holography overview (9:02) Maldacena's example of holography (15:13) Using holography for QCD (20:15) Truncating AdS spacetime (23:38) Chiral symmetry breaking (25:00) Non-Fermi liquids (30:54) Strange metals (33:16) Holography and Non-Fermi liquids (35:43) Holography and higher spin gravity (40:00) Evading Weinberg-Witten theorem (42:58) Generalized symmetries (Overview) (49:28) Applications of generalized symmetries (52:56) Kramers-Wannier duality (57:44) Symmetries as topological operators (1:00:47) Machine learning rediscovers duality (1:07:11) Sine Gordon/ Thirring duality (1:11:24) Which architecture to use? (1:16:21) How to see AI physics discoveries? (1:20:38) Tackling physics misinformation (1:26:40) The "Lying for Grants" lie (1:31:25) How to take Ph.D. students? (1:33:21) Lack of motivation (1:35:00) Getting back from failed projects (1:38:07) (People's question) Strings & 3D Ising model (1:40:58) People's questions (Rapid fire) (1:47:32) US vs UK Ph.D. system (1:49:11) Advice for undergrad, master & Ph.D students (1:51:23) Dealing with Imposter syndrome

Description Dr. Zohar Komargodski is a theoretical physicist at the Simon Center for Geometry and Physics and he works on RG flows, generalized symmetries, and condensed matter physics among other things. A list of his works can be found in the link below.

Some links 1) Dr. Komargodski's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1021214 2) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:43) Guest's intro (1:08) His interest in physics (2:52) His interest in high-energy physics (4:17) Overview of RG flows (8:03) Relation with effective field theories (13:36) Extra terms in Maxwell equations (15:00) What does a theory 'flowing' mean? (18:22) Fixed points in RG flows (CFTs) (20:48) What a CFT can flow to? (21:12) c-theorem (28:55) a-theorem (30:58) Similar theorems in higher dimensions (32:25) Symmetries preserved under RG flows (36:21) How to define an anomaly? (38:52) What is a 'thooft anomaly? (44:47) Is ABJ anomaly an anomaly? (47:28) Unsolved problems regarding RG flows (49:52) Holographic methods for RG flows (51:22) Overview of generalized symmetries (58:04) Applications (His paper on monopoles) (1:04:50) Applications (Pion decay and Yang-Mills) (1:08:16) Prospects of generalized symmetries (1:10:06) Which ideas to take seriously? (1:13:22) Phrase "Theory of Everything" is misleading? (1:19:00) Comments on LQG and quantizing gravity (1:35:17) MOND (Philosophy and comments) (1:46:28) Geometric Unity (Philosophy and comments) (1:53:58) SU(5) theory (1:55:57) Tackling science misinformation (2:00:01) The "Lying for grants" lie (2:05:10) Mistakes in papers (2:07:57) Tackling misinformation (continued) (2:10:57) Misinformation, funding and progress (2:15:38) Mathematical consistency (2:21:21) Size of string theory community (2:25:09) High energy Physics job market (2:29:18) Misconceptions about the number of papers (2:34:51) How to interpret letters from unknown academics? (2:38:48) How to take Ph.D. students? (2:42:39) Advice for younger researchers? (2:43:37) How to be motivated with slow progress? (2:46:47) (People's question) Symmetry breaking (2:48:42) (People's question) Cosmology (2:50:11) (People's question) Recommendation letter (2:51:16) (People's question) Food places in NYC (2:52:48) Ending Corrections: (1:44:21) NGC 1277 appears to have a "deficit of dark matter" but the acceleration that was probed in the 2023 study was not sufficiently small to probe the MOND regime. So, this study doesn't rule MOND out right away. (2:43:51) He is actually talking about the book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by H. Murakami

Dr. John Donoghue is a theoretical physicist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is well known for his work on effective field theories of gravity. He has also co-authored two books (links given below). Some links 1) Dynamics of the standard model: https://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Standard-Cambridge-Monographs-Cosmology/dp/0521476526 2) A prelude to Quantum Field Theory: https://www.amazon.com/Prelude-Quantum-Field-Theory/dp/0691223483 3) List of Dr. Donoghue's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1011544 4) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:20) Intro (0:36) Introduction of the guest (0:56) His 'prelude to QFT' book (6:06) What made him do the 1994 calculation? (10:34) Influence of the 'thooft-Veltman paper (14:15) Using the (+ - - -) metric (15:55) His work on avoiding singularity and its inconclusiveness (20:09) Is the BGV theorem valid in modified gravity? (21:46) Why people are still working on asymptotic safety? (27:49) Is the fixed point a CFT? (29:01) Won't the field theory description break down? (31:12) (People's question) Using machine learning in QFT (33:16) (People's question) Measuring the corrections to Einstein's equation (38:17) (People's question) Why quantize gravity? (42:28) (People's question) Gravity without spacetime (43:36) (People's question) Tackling hard problems in Ph.D. (49:31) (People's question) How to select Ph.D. students? (52:31) (People's question) What problems he wants solved? (55:26) (People's question) Using holography for EFTs (56:45) (People's question) Nonuniversality of lightcones (59:23) (People's question) Probing black holes using EFTs (1:01:37) Goodbye

Dr. Antonio Padilla is a cosmologist at the University of Nottingham, working on the problems of cosmology, black holes, modified gravity, and string theory. He is well known for his videos on Numberphile and sixty symbols (links given below). He authored the book, "Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them" (link below). Some links 1) His book: https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Numbers-Where-Find-Them/dp/0374600562 2) His videos on Numberphile: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt5AfwLFPxWL8KAJKO3WfHhJcWrJfjgfU&si=klpd8E9cNC8Nvb5M 3) His videos on sixty symbols: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcUY9vudNKBPJmX64Jay51cdZTKMz4ACs&si=70ng6G21LrWdGS9n Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:20) Intro (0:36) Introduction of the guest (1:11) His interest in cosmology (2:50) His interest in numbers (3:10) His book (Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them) (4:10) His interest in numbers (continued) (7:37) Procedure to make a numberphile video (10:41) His most favorite video ever (11:50) Shortest papers ever (13:27) Lessons from doing popular science (16:09) Countering misinformation on string theory (26:59) Academic jobs for young people (27:55) Shamit Kachru leaving the field (31:54) Does string theory have de Sitter spacetime? (38:33) His views on DESI results (43:00) His views on anthropic reasoning (46:20) Modified gravity and MOND (51:20) Undergrads in the Publications race (55:00) A breakthrough in maths required? (56:51) Grad school with bad grades (58:36) His work on integration techniques (1:03:07) Two titles for his book (1:04:05) Goodbye

Dr. Cliff Burgess is a theoretical physicist at McMaster University and Perimeter Institute. He works on string theory, quantum gravity, cosmology, dark matter, and occasionally condensed matter physics. He did his Ph.D. from UT Austin, Texas, in 1985 under the supervision of Dr. Steven Weinberg. The list of his works can be seen below. Some links 1) Dr. Burgess' Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/cburgescliff 2) Dr. Burgess' list of works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1014953?ui-citation-summary=true

Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:16) Intro (0:34) Introduction of the guest (1:30) Weinberg as an advisor (6:15) No papers with Weinberg (8:06) Weinberg's notation and conventions (12:03) How he chose his Ph.D. topic (14:42) What you don't know and what nobody knows (19:15) Enthusiasm for Effective Field Theory (EFT) (23:31) John Donoghue's work (25:50) Getting deSitter in string theory (31:53) On modifying gravity (36:09) Inflation models (43:36) His work on quantum Hall effect (51:38) His experience of writing textbooks (56:17) Favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics? (58:04) People's questions (1:08:50) His reaction to the accelerating universe (1:14:22) People's questions (continued)

Dr. Nirmalya Kajuri is a theoretical physicist at IIT Mandi, India. He got his Ph.D. from IMSc, Chennai. He works on holography and related areas and he is quite well-known for popularizing science using social media platforms. Some links 1) Dr. Kajuri's Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/Kaju_Nut 2) Dr. Kajuri's list of works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1254767?ui-citation-summary=true

Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: @hassaan.3142 Follow on Twitter: @Hassaan_PHY Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/phymaths3142 Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00:00) Coming Up (0:00:19) Intro (0:00:33) Introduction of guest (0:01:06) Transitioning from LQG to String Theory (0:11:48) Lessons to learn from Dr. Kajuri's Ph.D. (0:15:45) Background required to do research (0:21:38) Asking for help in your Ph.D. (0:23:45) String theory's background independence (0:26:00) Media for popularizing string theory (0:32:14) Effects on funding of string theory (0:33:58) Example of superconducting supercollider (0:38:57) How to popularize abstract topics? (0:43:28) How to combat pseudoscience? (0:52:51) How to know the real experts? (0:56:04) The phenomenon of crackpots (0:58:44) Does fame and money change scientists? (1:00:17) Intelligence required for being a physicist (1:04:04) Making discoveries before 30? (1:07:18) Indian schools (1:13:31) Considerations before doing a Ph.D. (1:16:17) Research in Indian Institutes (1:23:04) His favorite equation and books (1:24:40) On establishing more IISERs (1:25:42) People spreading pseudoscience (1:26:43) Problem of research metrics

Thomas Van Riet is a theoretical physicist at KU Leuven, Belgium who works on problems in string theory and quantum gravity in general. The list of Dr. Riet's works can be found below. Some links 1) Dr. Riet's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ThomasVanRiet2 2) Dr. Riet's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1024898?ui-citation-summary=true Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: @hassaan.3142 Follow on Twitter: @Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:26) Intro (0:40) Introduction of the guest (1:08) Getting deSitter spacetime from string theory (7:21) String theorists and phenomenology (10:24) Addressing criticisms of String Theory (18:30) Swampland program (20:33) Bad Criticisms of String Theory (29:28) Does this criticism affect the funding? (36:04) Problems with faculty positions (41:29) How to attack bad criticism of string theory? (47:11) Missing topics from popular science (50:40) Some great qualities of string theory (53:56) Are extra dimensions inevitable? (58:59) They aren't "dimensions". It is "central charge" (1:01:34) Understanding AdS landscape (1:12:31) String theory says "No tensor modes"? (1:16:20) Using generalized symmetries (1:19:14) Goodbye

Description Dr. Raghu Mahajan is a theoretical physicist at ICTS Bangalore, working on the problems regarding instantons. He has previously worked on the Island's approach to Black Holes. A list of his works can be found in the link below. Some links 1) Dr. Mahajan's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1229066 2) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00:00) Coming Up (0:00:26) Intro of guest (0:00:54) Time at IIT and interest in Physics (0:04:30) His interest in String Theory (0:08:20) Interest in the Islands approach (0:10:09) Massive Gravitons in Islands? (0:15:43) His opinion on the Fuzzball program (0:18:44) State of string theory (0:21:46) Important Areas in String Theory (0:24:30) Pure Spinor Formalism (0:25:18) String Field Theory's community (0:29:04) deSitter spacetime in String Theory (0:33:24) Third superstring revolution? (0:35:30) Spacetime isn't fundamental (0:38:25) Nonsupersymmetric situations (0:40:47) Swampland program (0:43:54) His work on Instantons in 2D (0:55:00) Job Market in String Theory (1:06:02) (People's question) Intuition vs Calculations (1:08:03) (People's question) AI and Theoretical Physics (1:11:49) (People's question) Computers in research (1:13:04) (People's question) Physics pathway in India (1:14:48) (People's question) String Theory Criticism (1:18:47) (People's question) String Theory is the end? (1:19:31) (People's question) Taking Ph.D. students (1:20:01) (People's question) Advice for young scientists

Dr. Harold Erbin is a theoretical physicist who works on string field theory and string compactifications. He uses AI to solve problems in theoretical physics and is the author of the most recent book on string field theory. A list of his works can be found below. Some links 1) Dr. Erbin's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1273902?ui-citation-summary=true 2) Support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/phymaths 3) Become a YouTube member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3nAENP4F5GKrGk9BLNFLvw/join 4) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:25) Introduction of the guest (0:46) What is String Field Theory (SFT)? Why use it? (4:05) Functional fields in SFT (6:24) Mathematical Techniques for SFT (9:27) BRST and BV action (13:12) Background independence of string theory (29:39) Using pure spinor formalism (36:10) Using machine learning for SFT (50:38) Geometric BV algebras (57:03) Training the neural network (1:14:31) Constraints on closed SFT vertices (1:18:43) QFT - Neural Network correspondence (1:28:22) UV limit for Neural Network? (1:31:37) Experience with Ashoke Sen (1:44:40) His book on SFT (1:58:22) (People's question) Is string theory the end of Physics? (2:01:14) (People's question) Learning complex manifolds (2:03:31) (People's question) Learning machine learning early

Dr. David Wallace is a philosopher of science and a physicist, with doctorates in physics and philosophy. He works on the foundations of physics, and he is a proponent of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. His list of works can be found below. In this podcast episode, we discuss the "philosophy of physics" lens to look at different topics in physics. Some links 1) Dr. Wallace's list of works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/984235?ui-citation-summary=true 2) Support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/phymaths 3) Become our YouTube member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3nAENP4F5GKrGk9BLNFLvw/join 4) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: greatestmight@gmail.com Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:29) Introduction of the guest (1:04) Real patterns in physics (10:00) Interpretation vs precisification (16:48) Are ghost fields real? (23:02) Emergence of time (25:24) Difficulties in doing interdisciplinary work (32:20) Should you do a philosophy PhD? (34:50) Did the 2022 Nobel Prize change anything? (37:20) Quantum mechanics isn't underdetermined (43:15) Dynamics-first vs geometry-first (46:25) Born rule in many worlds interpretation (1:01:25) Consciousness in a branching universe (1:06:38) Quantum Gravity (1:10:10) Does gravity need to be quantized? (1:16:00) (People's question) Interpreting path integrals (1:18:10) (People's question) Philosophical input in physics (1:23:47) Earlier physicists reading philosophy (1:26:03) (People's question) Generalizing a measurement (1:27:30) (People's question) Detecting many worlds? (1:31:25) (People's question) Renormalization