Is it just me, or do these look like string theory world-sheet diagrams to everyone else too?
They’re apparently nothing to do with physics, and supposed to be something to do with the Olympics or something like that (I didn’t really understand, and could not read the plaque), and they are located right next to the fancy new sports centre on the National Taiwan University campus.
But what’s on the other side of the sculptures, right next to them, across from the sports centre? The fancy new physics building! I find this fact (and the sculptures’ uncanny resemblance to diagrams from string theory) amazing.
Coincidence? You decide.
-cvj
January 6th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Hi Clifford,
I am really happy that you’re back on our planet – but if you still see worldsheet diagrams in these sculptures, you may have needed two months off-planet instead of one.
Moreover, these are not worldsheets but AdS3 spacetimes. One of them is ternal AdS3, and the next one is a thermal partition sum in AdS3.
Cheers
Lubos
January 6th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Oh… I’d better re-pack then. Please teach my classes for me!
-cvj
January 6th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
If you teach some nice class, it could be fun. But the airplanes are too slow. At any rate, I was jealous about your month on the Moon or wherever you have been.
I just noticed that this is just one of two different Cosmic Variances. The other cosmic variance argues that the LHC will bring us into a huge energy crisis, and other things.
[spam address removed by admin]
At any rate, Cosmic Variance has already made it when crackpots are trying to steal the trademark.
Have a nice weekend,
Lubos
January 7th, 2006 at 1:41 am
What’s a “world-sheet?” If you have made your bed with it, must you lie on it?
January 7th, 2006 at 3:27 am
They look like 1′s and 0′s to me, but I’ve spend too much time with computers.
BTW, did you know there are 10 kinds of people in the world? Those who understand binary and those who don’t.
Like I said, too much time with computers.
January 7th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Hey Clifford
Well not to me. I just think that they look cool. If you tell me now that the moon was a physics department in Taiwan, I am really disappointed. After your last post, I thought you’ve been somewhere extraordinary like the dessert and not just a place, where you could work!!!
But I hope it still was fun,
Helge
January 7th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Clifford, Lubos is right. You need a REAL vacation!
January 7th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Helge… don’t be disappointed. I was somewhere extraordinary. I don’t spend a month in such a culture every day, if you know what I mean. I certainly did not spend all my time sitting in physics deparrtments! Please hang in there….. there’s more to come. I guess the key point I was trying to make in the earlier posts is that I was very very far from my regular life (“planet”), by going there, which is what I wanted to do.
To go to a truly isolated place almost as deolate as the moon (!) is actually simple for me… I don’t have to leave California. I can just drive for a few hours deep into the desert – I can hide there. Much easier!
Dissident: It was never intended to be a vacation in the traditional sense….just time to do something completely different for a while. I find that does me a power of good. (The day I stop and take a true lie-on-the-beach type of vacation for a whole month, I may never come back!)
Cheers,
-cvj
January 7th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Pyracantha:
As a particle moves in time, it sweeps out a line in spacetime…..imagine putting a little light on it and then doing a long exposure shot of a particle moving…you’d get a line. THis is called a “worldline” in the trade.
Analogously, as a string moves in time, it sweeps out a two dimensional surface (“sheet”) in space. “worldsheet”.
See some of the diagrams here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2005/10/03/news-from-the-front-i
and here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2005/11/04/news-from-the-front-iii/
Cheers,
-cvj
January 7th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Matt:- I like the joke!
About your observations of 1s and 0s. You might be on to something there. That may be part of the intent too. There are a number of things like that in Taipei celebrating their technological interests. Note the name “Taipei 101″ for their lovely building (currently the world’s tallest …. see picture in my “Back to the Future” post). The 101 is partly (they say in the blurb) to do with binary….
So it’s really only me that sees string theory diagrams? Gosh.
Cheers,
-cvj
January 7th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Oh Clifford, I am just disappointed that I would have guessed right: You were hidding in a Physics department … I should have posted it, and didn’t. Still mad at me
January 7th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Pah! That’s nothing! Over in the UK (in Cornwall) we were doing string theory in Neolithic times. Unconvinced? Then have a look here.
January 8th, 2006 at 5:52 am
Whilst the structure’s do have a look of “Ring-Toss” the fairground “rip-off” game, I do not think they are numbers?
Unless, as pointed out by ‘steve’, you think that this:
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/bigpic6/walba2hi.jpg
was the symbol of “Pi” ?
I think there is a “loop-Quantum-Gravity” symbolic reference to the Columns, being projected from a 2-D plane, that has obvious Quantum dynamic fluctuations, embedded into the plane?
The Torus may be the three columns that are no longer singular in 3-D, “seperate and detached”?.. so are not yet part of, or joined to the 2-D plane, except at a finite limit, the junction that holds the Torus in the upright position?
Then again it may have been some abstract Geometric meaning?..ie none-of-the-above !
January 8th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Ah… I did not see the LQG meanings. Hmmm….
-cvj