Comments on: Surfin’ in Southern California

By: Clifford

Clifford — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 02:34:48 +0000

Peter, Cameron,

I was referring to the Hawking black hole claims, specifically. Your recommendations for reading on LQG are good ones.

-cvj

By: Kevin, MarkS' meanie brother

Kevin, MarkS' meanie brother — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 22:21:12 +0000

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/toda-oconnell.html

Physicists need groupies too. Gnarly.

By: Caolionn

Caolionn — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 21:20:03 +0000

Thanks for the reciprocal plug. But none of the that string-theory pressure, we’re just hoping to be a viable technology in general at this point.

And thanks, citrine. I have to say it really does feel awesome to have finally finished.

By: citrine

citrine — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:25:35 +0000

Congratulations to Dr.Caolionn O’Connell! This must be truly gratifying after all those years of hard work.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:51:42 +0000

Hi Cameron,

Clifford is kind to send you my way for information about LQG, but it’s not something I’m that knowledgeable about or have written about other than tangentially on my blog. Lee Smolin has written in there with some extensive comments on LQG, and last year there was an interesting exchange between him and Larry Yaffe on the subject. For something non-technical I’d suggest looking at Lee’s book “Three Roads to Quantum Gravity”, for something more technical, both he and Carlo Rovelli have written a lot of expository material, which shouldn’t be too hard for you to find.

By: Clifford

Clifford — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:25:56 +0000

Hi,

Yes, very off-topic. I’m unable to reply in an depth now, but I think that there was a discussion of it on Peter Woit’s blog not so long ago. Have a look through there. He’ll also maybe have links from there to other discussions that I do not know of.

-cvj

By: Cameron

Cameron — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:09:28 +0000

This is off topic (somewhat) but I’m curious as to the Variance’s opinion on a couple of things. First, have you heard what the physics communities response has been to Stephen Hawking’s latest pre-print regarding black holes? As a non-physicist it’s hard for me to judge the validity of his piece. Second, what are the general merits (or lack thereof) of loop quantum gravity? How does it differ from string theory? Thanks, love your site.

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 01:52:24 +0000

Hah. I got a *Nature* cover.
But, to be honest, it was a total scam. Other people did the work and I just helped with the computer graphics. If you want a cover, people, computer graphics is where it’s at.